Critical design: Difference between revisions

A Criticalcritical Designdesign object challenges an audience's preconceptions, provoking new ways of thinking about the object, its use, and the surrounding culture. Its adverse is affirmative design: design that reinforces the status quo. For a project to succeed in Criticalcritical Designdesign, the viewer must be mentally engaged and willing to think beyond the expected and ordinary. Humor is important, but satire is not the goal.

Many practitioners of Criticalcritical Designdesign have never heard of the term itself, and/or would describe their work differently. Referring to it as Criticalcritical Designdesign simply garners more attention to it, and emphasizes that design has applications beyond problem solving.

It is more of an attitude than a style or movement; a position rather than a method. Critical design builds on this attitude by creatively critiquing concepts and ideologies using fabricated artifacts to embody commentaries around everything from consumer culture to the #MeToo Movement. Regardless of its processes, Criticalcritical Designdesign is often discussed as a unique approach in [[Design research|Design Research]], perhaps because of its focus on critiquing widely held social, cultural, and technical beliefs. The process of designing such an object, as well as the presentation and narrative around the object itself, allows for reflection on existing cultural values, morals, and practices. In making such an object, critical designers frequently employ classic design processes—research, user experience, iteration—while working to conceptualize scenarios intended to highlight social, cultural, or political paradigms.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/talktome/home.html|title=MoMA - Talk to Me}}</ref> Design as societal critique is not a new idea.

[[Radical period (design)|Italian Radical Design]] of the 1960s and 70s was highly critical of prevailing social values and design ideologies.

The term Critical"critical Designdesign" was first used in Anthony Dunne’sDunne's book ''Hertzian Tales'' (1999)<ref>{{cite book

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According to Sanders, Criticalcritical Designdesign probes an "ambiguous stimuli that

}}</ref> Uta Brandes identifies Criticalcritical Designdesign as a discrete Design Research method<ref>{{cite book

To attribute to design practice, critical design broadens the vision in design from traditional practice. It is no longer limited to highlighting the physical function in product design, though this causes some ambiguities in the discussion of critical design's function as it maintains in design area. Matt Malpass addresses Larry Ligo's classification of five different types of function: Structural articulation, Physical function, Psychological function, Social function, as well as Cultural-existential function<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Concept of Function in Twentieth-Century Architectural Criticism|last=Ligo|first=Larry|publisher=MI: UMI Research Press|date=1984|isbn=9780835715423}}</ref> in his article, with a further discussion of how Modernism leaves a narrower understanding of physical utility when we think about function,<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Malpass|first=Matt|date=Spring 2015|title=Criticism and Function in Critical Design Practice|journal=Design Issues|volume= 31| issue = 2|pages=59–71 |doi=10.1162/DESI_a_00322 |s2cid=57571804 |url=http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/7921/1/DESI3102_pp59-pp71_vB.pdf }}</ref> which leads to the ambiguity in Criticalcritical Designdesign's function. As critical design focuses on present social, cultural, and ethical implications of design objects and practice,<ref name=":0" /> Itit mostly emphasizes on social and cultural impact from its function.

}}</ref> the same year that [[Lindsay Grace]] started the [[Critical Gameplay]] project. Grace's Critical Gameplay project is an internationally exhibited collection of video games that apply Criticalcritical Designdesign. The games provoke questions about the way games are designed and played. The [[Critical Gameplay]] Game, Wait, was awarded the [[Games for Change]] hall of fame award for being one of the 5 most important games for social impact since 2003. The work has been shown at [[Electronic Language International Festival]], [[Games, Learning & Society Conference]], [[Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems]] among other notable events.

As critical design has gained mainstream exposure, the discipline has been itself criticized by some for dramatizing so-called 'dystopian scenarios,' which may, in fact, be reflective of real-life conditions in some places in the world. Some see Criticalcritical Designdesign as rooted in the fears of a wealthy, urban, western population and failing to engage with existing social problems. As an example, a project titled ''Republic of Salivation'', by designers Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta, featured as part of [[Museum of Modern Art|MoMA]]'s Design and Violence series, portrays a society plagued by overpopulation and food scarcity which is reliant on heavily modified, government-provided, nutrient blocks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://designandviolence.moma.org/republic-of-salivation-michael-burton-and-michiko-nitta/|title=Republic of Salivation (Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta)|date=19 December 2013}}</ref> Certain media responses to the work, point to the "presumed naivety of the project," which presents a scenario that "might be dystopian to some, but in some other parts of the world it has been the reality for decades."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@luizaprado/questioning-the-critical-in-speculative-critical-design-5a355cac2ca4|title=Questioning the "critical" in Speculative & Critical Design: A rant on the blind privilege that permeates most Speculative Design projects.|last=luizaprado|date=4 February 2014}}</ref>

In recognition of their formalization of the field, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby were presented with the inaugural [[MIT Media Lab]] Award in June 2015 with director [[Joichi Ito]] pointing out that "[Dunne and Raby's] pioneering approach to Criticalcritical Designdesign and its intersection with science, technology, art, and the humanities has changed the landscape of design education and practice worldwide."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@medialab/introducing-the-media-lab-award-795ac9e7a8d9|title=Introducing the Media Lab Award|first=MIT Media|last=Lab|date=16 July 2015}}</ref>