Image source: http://www.conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/
Link to google slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XfMEx2mqTW9un1VY9-j_-HwKRNvHuHYUaJK0TDNVeqE/edit?usp=sharing
Critical making is a term came up in 2008 by Matt Ratto, a university Associate Professor, and can be defined as a combination of ‘critical thinking’ and ‘making’. It describes processes of material and conceptual exploration, specifically the use of hand-on practices to link technologies to the society, to stimulate critical social reflection. Ratto hoped this term can create incentive to professionals primarily working with language (E.g. fields of communication and science) to work with hands-on activity with “conceptual and linguistic -oriented thinking”.
In short, critical making is to create prototype and explore them using technologies and push users to question and discuss about social norms. Also, according to Ratto, “Critical making emphasizes the shared acts of making rather than the evocative object. The final prototypes are not intended to be displayed and to speak for themselves”. It is the process of constructive and exploring that matters.
Standard methods of technological design mainly produce products based on needs and function. However, there is a lack of emotional, cultural and social value(human-oriented values). It over-emphasizes consumer-oriented values such as production efficiency and the result. This leads to ignorance of connecting consumers to personal emotional level during the production process. Critical making lets designers to rethink about the designing principle and explore a “broader spectrum of human experience”, creating more remarkable products. It reminds people to stand in a different perspective and to care more of their user experience and emotion.
79% Work Clock
“79% Work Clock” is an example of critical making, to “open up and extend social reflection”. It is a product created by PARTY, a creative lab based in New York and Tokyo, with collaboration with MTV’s Look Different campaign.
Image source: https://adage.com/creativity/work/79-clock/46448
The 79% is the annual median wage for women compared to men in American, working from 9am to 5pm everyday. The 79% Work Clock is different from the technological designed clock. This is a critical making product that protests towards the discrimination to women regarding their age, race or sexual orientation. It challenges social norms and stimulates social reflection by simply chimes once 79% of the women’s workday is over. This is to remind the colleges(especially male) the unfair situation women employees are suffering. A ordinary clock will only denote the time and chime at the time set. This is a purely functional design that cannot reach user’s personal emotional level. The PARTY website provides an online tool for woman to calculate where the 79% is and when it should chime. It is an informative than practical product that alarms the social issue: gender pay gap in the US.
Image source: https://medium.com/look-different/what-is-the-pay-gap-and-how-can-we-end-it-c2b7fcb71a13
All in all, I think critical making is an important concept for future designers to understand and apply. The designing principle should be ongoing improving and extending. “A good art should cause resonance with viewers, connect them to personal or emotional level.” Design should not be constraint with only fulfilling function and needs but also have to consider the user experience by linking to social and cultural context to evolve into a better design.
References:
Hertz, G. (n.d.). What is Critical Making? Retrieved February 20, 2019, from http://current.ecuad.ca/what-is-critical-making
Bendix, A. (2016, April 27). Your Newest Reminder of the Wage Gap Is an Alarm Clock. Retrieved February 20, 2019, from https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/04/wage-gap-clock/479973/
Lou, Mary, and Shovova. “12 Contemporary Artists Tell Us What It Takes to Make a Great Piece of Art.” My Modern Met. May 12, 2017. Accessed February 19, 2019. https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-great-art/.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLAonn5j4mI