Critical Design Catalog Sample

Catalog compiled by Stephanie LouraineGraphic design/layout by Rebekah OlsenSupported by Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing (ISTC)

The full catalog has over 325 exemplars. This is a small sample of the catalog.

Lame Landshipshttp://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2011/11/err-a-conversation-with-jeremy.php#.UJSWxEIp8Xk

Kim at Hui-Yo Sports, Guangdong, China2011

A factory-made skateboard deliberately made to be non-functional. Part of Jeremy Hutchinson’s Err exhibit.

“Earlier this year, Jeremy Hutchison sent emails to manufacturers around the world, asking them to produce a fairly simple and common item. He added a special requirement though: the product had to be imperfect, come with an intentional error. Moreover, the worker was in charge of deciding which kind of error, malfunction or fault he would add to the good. The artist reassured the factory that, whatever the result, he would pay for the faulty object.”

“[This] project didn’t come out of nowhere. It was triggered by an article I read about the Apple Mac factory in Shenzhen. ... One worker told the newspaper that ‘he would deliberately drop something on the ground so that he could have a few seconds of rest when picking it up.’

An intentional error is a strange idea - illogical, oxymoronic. And fundamentally human. So in some ways, Err is simply a continuation of this worker’s gesture. It’s a moment of respite from the endless repetition of the global production line.”

“With Menstruation Machine, Sputniko! explores the relationship between identity, biology, and choice, while also inquiring into the meaning of gender-specific rituals. The metal device, which looks like a chastity belt and is equipped with a blood-dispensing system and electrodes that stimulate the lower abdomen, replicates the pain and bleeding of the average five-day menstruation period. It is designed to be worn by men, children, postmenopausal women, or whoever else wants to experience menstruation. A music video that can be displayed with the device is about Takashi, who wants to understand what it feels like to be a girly girl. Takashi builds the Menstruation Machine and wears it out on the town with a girlfriend, strutting around a shopping mall and occasionally doubling over in pain. Thus an internal, private process is transformed into a wearable display of identity. Since the 1960s, advances in hormone-based contraception have, by suppressing ovulation, made monthly periods no longer biologically necessary. Sputniko! notes that the Menstruation Machine may be particularly desirable in a future in which menstruation in fact becomes obsolete.”

Menstruation Machinehttp://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/talktome/objects/142590/

Sputniko!2010

http://www.switched.com/2010/06/28/men-can-try-the-menstrua-tion-machine-to-feel-bleeding-down-th/)

“The advent of next generation military/police technologies for urban use has made engaging in active social insurgency an increasingly risky venture. Real-time video surveillance systems, networked databases, urban infiltration robots, and a flurry of “nonviolent” restraint and subjugation technologies threaten to have a chilling effect on traditional methods of cultural resistance, particularly the creation and dissemination of subversive texts. The Robotic GraffitiWriter (GW) was developed in response to the need

for a high speed, teleoperated, portable platform that operates beyond the line of sight (BLOS) to disseminate unsanctioned content in the dynamic adversarial urban environment. In repeated testing, this system has proven its effectiveness on such high risk/high profile targets as the U.S. Capital Building as well as numerous urban commercial and municipal spaces in the US and abroad.”

GraffitiWriterInstitute for Applied Autonomy1998

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/gw.html

A tooth implant that transmits sound directly into the jawbone and into the inner ear. Only the wearer can hear the signal. It is almost a form of electronic telepathy.

“Sound reception is completely discreet allowing the user to receive information at times where use of other technologies would be socially innapropriate.

The Audio Tooth Implant is a conceptual proposition intended to encourage discourse and comment on the possibilities of biotechnology and it’s potential impact on society and culture.”

Audio Tooth Implanthttp://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=7

James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau2001

“The Energy Curtain collects energy when the sun shines on it, saving and storing energy during the day (to the extent that it is drawn down) for lighting up the room when the sun goes down. It is [our] interpretation of the familiar relation to curtains as a means of controlling the light in a room – but by requiring a user to make a trade-off between letting the light in during the day or drawing the curtain to save the light for later, it introduces a conceptual twist and requires that a user act tangibly on the choice between consuming or saving energy on a daily basis.”

S Backlund, M Gyllenswärd, A Gustafsson, S Ilstedt Hjelm, R Mazé1, J Redström2006

Energy CurtainS Backlund, M Gyllenswärd, A Gustafsson, S Ilstedt Hjelm, R Mazé1, J Redström. (2006) STATIC! The Aesthetics of En-ergy in Everyday Things. Proc. of Design Research Society IADE.

“The 2.4Ghz project uses a wireless video receiver to hack into wireless surveillance cameras. This device (which is now part of consumers popular products), can be used for wireless surveillance cameras, but it can also be used for parents to monitor their children. Such systems are becoming more popular as they get cheaper.

But what most users of those devices don’t realise is that they are broadcasting the signal.

This project (on-going) has several layers. Initially, I have been walking around different towns in Europe to collect and record footage received with the device.

The second part of the project (also on-going) consists of placing the device in the street to reveal the presence of the cameras and to make obvious the fact that anyone can receive those signals.

The third stage of the project consists of a series of workshops: 2.4GHz Workshop, where participants are invited to explore the CCTV wireless networks of their city by searching for 2.4GHz surveillance video signals. The location of the various signals found are collected into a Google map.”

2.4 Ghzhttp://www.recyclism.com/twopointfour.php

Benjamin Gaulon2008-present

“Consumerism is tempting us on a daily basis: more objects, food, cloths and other products, some of which are not necessary at all. We are exposed to endless commercial content and other media that shape our perspective of what we should be, look like, and buy. It would seem that with time, we develop a certain numbness for the true needs of every person, and get carried away by the material world. Heart-Beans encompasses this formula, incorporating elements that its developers deem as basic needs – touch, and communication between a person and himself. To use this object, you must caress it and hug it, much like as a baby is held, the user inevitably bonds with it, emotionally.

Ultimately, Heat-Beans is a coffee-grinder, set to operate according to the user’s heart-beats... This machine gives a physical expression to the emotional state of the user and by its design – induce an experience of intimacy with the process of making coffee.Holding the grinder is similar in pose and essence to holding a baby or a musical instrument, very affectionately. This is to simulate the relationship we have with other things we so care about, so to eventually bring about the same closeness here. And yet, as the grinder adhere the heart-beats, it produces a different taste with each use.”

Heart Beanshttp://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/heart-beans

Adi Navwany, Michal Shamsian, Itamar Paloge and Danielle Ram2008