Critical by Design?

Critical by Design?

Genealogies, Practices, Positions

Edited by Claudia Mareis, Moritz Greiner-Petter and Michael Renner
Paperback $55.00

$55.00

Publication Date: 27th April 2022

With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique. Read More
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With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique. Read More
Description

In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be.
With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique.

Details
  • Price: $55.00
  • Pages: 332
  • Carton Quantity: 11
  • Publisher: transcript publishing
  • Imprint: transcript publishing
  • Series: Design
  • Publication Date: 27th April 2022
  • Trim Size: 6.69 x 9.45 in
  • ISBN: 9783837661040
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
    DESIGN / History & Criticism
Author Bio

Claudia Mareis (Prof. Dr.) is a design researcher and cultural historian. Since 2021, she has been a professor of design and history of knowledge at the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she is also the co-director of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«. Besides, she is a lecturer at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW in Basel. Her research interests include history, theory and methodology of design in the 20th century, knowledge cultures in design, experimental design and media practices, cultural history of creativity, and design and material politics.
Moritz Greiner-Petter is a designer and design researcher based in Basel. He is a junior researcher at the Critical Media Lab Basel, part of the Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW. As a researcher and practitioner, he is invested in critical approaches towards the media aesthetics and epistemes of information technologies, with a focus on investigating the design paradigms, materialities and epistemologies of digital interfaces for thinking, collaboration, and design.
Michael Renner (Prof.) went to work for Apple Computer Inc. and The Understanding Business in California, just after completing his diploma as graphic designer at Basel School of Design. Research and reflection upon the meaning of images in the context of digital communication channels became the central theme of Renner's practical and theoretical design activities. Today he is head of the Institute for Digital Communication Environments, HGK FHNW.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter 1
Contents 4
Critical by design? An introduction 8
What is a critical object? Design as «desubjugation» (after Foucault) 32
The vitality of the negative: critical design between social philosophy and conceptual art 50
Ask what can be! Modal critique and design as drivers of accidence 64
What are the politics of ontological design? A critical reflection on the mutual becoming of «the human» and «the world» 80
Engaging in epistemic disobedience: on the decolonialization of design discourses 94
Unsettling individualized design practice through collaboration 110
«Ci concimiamo a vicenda»: building support structures as part of design practice 124
Re-visioning pelvic care through design 140
Trojan horses: ambiguity as a critical design strategy 162
Grey design: critical practices of design at the peripheries of the discipline 182
The ineliminable aesthetic dimension of art 194
Design culture as critical practice 212
What might be the speculative social? 230
Biased design, or the misery of neutrality 248
Undesign and understanding 268
The life and death of critical and speculative design: post-disciplinarity, post-truth, post-self and post-capital 286
Critical by design? The book's design as SF figures 306
List of Figures & Tables 316
Biographies 318
Imprint 330

In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be.
With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique.

  • Price: $55.00
  • Pages: 332
  • Carton Quantity: 11
  • Publisher: transcript publishing
  • Imprint: transcript publishing
  • Series: Design
  • Publication Date: 27th April 2022
  • Trim Size: 6.69 x 9.45 in
  • ISBN: 9783837661040
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
    DESIGN / History & Criticism

Claudia Mareis (Prof. Dr.) is a design researcher and cultural historian. Since 2021, she has been a professor of design and history of knowledge at the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she is also the co-director of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«. Besides, she is a lecturer at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW in Basel. Her research interests include history, theory and methodology of design in the 20th century, knowledge cultures in design, experimental design and media practices, cultural history of creativity, and design and material politics.
Moritz Greiner-Petter is a designer and design researcher based in Basel. He is a junior researcher at the Critical Media Lab Basel, part of the Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW. As a researcher and practitioner, he is invested in critical approaches towards the media aesthetics and epistemes of information technologies, with a focus on investigating the design paradigms, materialities and epistemologies of digital interfaces for thinking, collaboration, and design.
Michael Renner (Prof.) went to work for Apple Computer Inc. and The Understanding Business in California, just after completing his diploma as graphic designer at Basel School of Design. Research and reflection upon the meaning of images in the context of digital communication channels became the central theme of Renner's practical and theoretical design activities. Today he is head of the Institute for Digital Communication Environments, HGK FHNW.

Frontmatter 1
Contents 4
Critical by design? An introduction 8
What is a critical object? Design as «desubjugation» (after Foucault) 32
The vitality of the negative: critical design between social philosophy and conceptual art 50
Ask what can be! Modal critique and design as drivers of accidence 64
What are the politics of ontological design? A critical reflection on the mutual becoming of «the human» and «the world» 80
Engaging in epistemic disobedience: on the decolonialization of design discourses 94
Unsettling individualized design practice through collaboration 110
«Ci concimiamo a vicenda»: building support structures as part of design practice 124
Re-visioning pelvic care through design 140
Trojan horses: ambiguity as a critical design strategy 162
Grey design: critical practices of design at the peripheries of the discipline 182
The ineliminable aesthetic dimension of art 194
Design culture as critical practice 212
What might be the speculative social? 230
Biased design, or the misery of neutrality 248
Undesign and understanding 268
The life and death of critical and speculative design: post-disciplinarity, post-truth, post-self and post-capital 286
Critical by design? The book's design as SF figures 306
List of Figures & Tables 316
Biographies 318
Imprint 330