What is your Critical Approach? Design, Power and Proximity

Abstract

This workshop explores strategies and tactics for “doing” critique in and through design research, The workshop invites design researchers from both descriptive-analytical fields and practise based and experimental fields to discuss the possibilities of critique and critical approaches in design research. The workshop invokes notions of critical distance and proximity through discussions of empirical examples provided by the organisers and participants in tandem. Participants will introduce themselves through a short, informal presentation of their work and its critical questions. Together, these case examples and questions will provide a frame for thinking about the critical capacities of descriptive-analytical and constructive design research in relation to systemic infrastructures, institutions and power. The aim of the workshop is to investigate how design researchers position themselves as critical and / or post-critical agents in research projects with collaborators situated in a range of ways. The intended outcome is a selection of critical guiding questions and strategic considerations generated by participants together as a resource for design researchers and practitioners working at the critical edge(s) of networks, systems, technologies and institutions.