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Critical Making refers to the hands on productive activities that link digital technologies to society. It is invented to bridge the gap between creative physical and conceptual exploration.[1] The term "critical making" is popularized by Matt Ratto, an Associate Professor and director of the Critical Making lab in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Ratto describes one of the main goals of critical making as: “...to use material forms of engagement with technologies to supplement and extend critical reflection and, in doing so, to reconnect our lived experiences with technologies to social and conceptual critique.”[2]

Arduino Hardware
Arduino Software: Processing Demonstration

The main focus of critical making is open design,[3] which includes digital software and hardware. Software usually refers to the Raspberry Pi or Arduino integrated development environment (IDE). Hardware refers to computer, Arduino, or any other devices that are used in critical making activities. People usually reference spectacular design when explaining critical making.[4] It is essential to study critical making to understanding the connection between today's ever-changing technology and the society. Currently, most critical making activities happen in the "critical making lab". It is urgent to put it into practice and test it in both theoretical and practical area.

Matt Ratto and Critical Making

Matt Ratto coined the term in 2008[5] to describe his workshop activities that linked conceptual reflection and technical making. This concept explores how learning is influenced by the learner's participation towards creating and/or making things within the technological context.[6] Ratto's first publication to use the term was in 2009. Ratto claims that his goal is to connect the conceptual understanding of technology in social life to the materialized activities. By situating himself within the area of “design-oriented research” rather than “research-oriented research”, Ratto believes that critical making enhance the shared experience in both theoretical and practical understandings of critical socio-technical issues [7] However, critical making should not be reviewed as design, but rather as a type of practice. The quality of critical making lab is evaluated based on the physical “making” process, regardless of quality of the final material production.[8] Prior studies have noted the separation between critical thinking and physical “making”. Specifically, experts in technology lack the knowledge from art, and vice versa.

Importance

Ratto's empirical findings in the current research on critical making provide a potential solution for the so-called “wicked problems”; this concept refers to issues in which no consensus exists with regard to problem definition.[9] In this context, critical making is successful. It encourages participants to collaborate during the process of “making”, which can also be referred as “a mode of engagement”.[10]

Critical making is an opportunity for participants to design low-fidelity prototypes. Critical makers might code instructions for an arduino, construct a structure using traditional crafting supplies and/or use building toys like Lego to realize their visions. Thus, critical making seeks to increase the use of technology in classrooms, studios and labs. Participants are not expected to deliver a highly sophisticated final product; thus, critical making can ease hesitant individuals into becoming acquainted with intimidating hardwares and software.

Often, critical making is done in small groups which supports discussion. Participants can leverage the particular skill set of each group member in the wider group effort. Critical making provides obvious opportunity to kinesthetic learners who thrive in hands-on situations; however, critical making could also benefit students who learn best while listening. Those who learn via written text could be an asset to the greater group in their ability to explain concepts from the consulted literature relevant to the making activity.

Practice

Students in Critical Making Activities with Lego

By way of illustration, the concept “flwr pwr” is introduced in critical making scenario, which was introduced to shows how people gain knowledge from critical making.[11] In general, this scenario is created to encourage people to participate in the infrared communication, visualized by a series of colored, blinking lights. Specifically, “flwr pwr” is simple electronic agents constructed from pre-assembled and coded components, including the arduino microcontroller and development environment[12] Arduino also includes hardware and software. The software can be installed into computers, which allow users to control the hardware (i.e. colored, blinking lights) by using simple coding systems. Reflection is a very important process involved in the critical making activities. Participants are asked to reflect on the making process and the conceptual exploration. Some of the questions could be: What was difficult in your prototype construction? What would you do differently next time? Having completed this exercise, has your opinion on the social concept changed or remained the same?

Materials

3D Printing: Allows for relatively cheap and customizable design of objects which are often integrated into critical making projects.

Raspberry Pi: Is a single-board computer (SBC). It has the functionality of a computer with audio, video, USB and LAN interfaces.

Arduino: Is a single-board microcontroller (MCU). Used to interface communications between user and design.

LEDs: Small lights integrated into many critical design projects as a way to give feedback and interact with user.

Conductive textile: Conductive fabrics and thread are used in many projects to circulate electrical currents which might connect LED’s to controller boards, like Arduino.

Craft Materials: Critical Making shares similar building practices from DIY, and as such, much of the ‘easy use’ craft materials are used during critical making projects. As a result, by connecting Arduino to computer through use cable, critical making allows designers to create arts using technologies.[13]

Critical Making Lab

Critical Making Lab is a shared space for students to experience the practice of critical making process in Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. Critical Making Lab provides participants tools and basic knowledge of digital technology used in critical making. The mission of this lab is to enhance collaboration, communication, and the practice-based engagement in critical making.[14] The Critical Making Lab was founded by Matt Ratto. Ratto started the practice of critical making workshops since 2007. Since 2007 in Amsterdam, London, Canada, the US, and Scotland. There are six current lab members, who are all students from Faculty of Information. With some other active members and alums, they form the team of critical making lab.

Critical making can continue to enrich the learning environment of faculty, students and community members if critical making centers and innovation labs continue to grow in popularity. Such a center would host advanced resources, tools and shops as well as cross-disciplinary curriculum and research development.

Site3 Colaboratory

Site 3 is created to encourage people to making, teaching, learning and thinking about the intersection between art and technology. The vision for the Site 3 coLaboratory is to have a space that will promote a four step cycle of create – display – teach – inspire. Site 3 members form a diverse group of people, including artists, makers, engineers, creators, techies; people who collaborate to make cool things. Site 3 has done a lot of amazing projects and tests that covers DIY and critical making, for example the PK4A (Using a wireless EEG headset and a control unit connected to a flame effect, participants can create 20′+ blasts of fire with their thoughts) and "DIY IR Remote Shutter Test at Site 3" (iPhone remotely control your camera).,

Garnet Hertz and Critical Making

In 2012, Garnet Hertz adopted the term for a series of ten handmade booklets titled "Critical Making" published in 2012. In this project, 70 different authors - including Norman White, Julian Bleecker, Dunne & Raby, Daniel Charny, Albert Borgmann, Golan Levin, Matt Ratto, Natalie Jeremijenko, McKenzie Wark, Paul Dourish, Mitch Altman, Dale Dougherty, Mark Pauline, Scott Snibbe, Reed Ghazala and others - reflected on the term and critical responses to the maker movement. Generally speaking, Hertz's use of the term critical making is focused around studio production and the creation of objects as "things to think with".[15] In 2014, Hertz founded "The Studio for Critical Making" at Emily Carr University of Art and Design as Canada Research Chair in Design and Media Arts.

John Maeda and Critical Making

In 2012, John Maeda began using the term while at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD): first as a title for their strategic plan for 2012-2017 and next as part of the title of an edited collection titled "The Art of Critical Making: Rhode Island School of Design on Creative Practice" published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Other Uses of Critical Making

Other individuals to use the term critical making to orient their work include Amaranth Borsuk (University of Washington-Bothell), Jentery Sayers (University of Victoria), and Kari Kraus (University of Maryland).

DIY and Critical Making

Traditional DIY is criticized by its cost and standard. DIY products are difficult to spread in lower-income areas where issues of cost and east are more commonly cited (William, 276) [16] . Today, TET increases the technological standard of DIY,[17] enhance the modernity of it, and open up a more practical and advanced area for DIY projects to develop It is not only a lifestyle choices but also a technological product.[18] “DIY activity is not for example seen as a coping practice used by those unable to afford to externalise the activity to formal firms and/or self-employed individuals. Instead, and reflecting the broader cultural turn in retail studies, their explanation for engagement in DIY is firmly grounded in human agency” (Williams, 273).[19]

Speculative Design and Critical Making

According to DiSalvo and Lukens, “Speculative design is an approach to design that emphasizes inquiry, experimentation, and expression, over usability, usefulness or desirability. A particular characteristic of speculative design is that it tends to be future-oriented. However this should not be mistaken as being fantasy-like sense, suggesting, that is “unreal” and therefore dismissible (DiSalvo and Lukens, 2009).”[20]

The term speculative design involves practices from various disciplines, including visionary or futurist forms of architecture, design fiction, and critical design or design for debate instead of referring a specific movement or style. More than just diagrams of unbuilt structures, speculative design aims to explore the space of interaction between culture, technology, and the built environment (Lukens and DiSalvo, 2012, p. 25). Practitioners of speculative design engage in design as a sort of provocation, one that asks uncomfortable questions about the long-term implications of technology. These practices also integrate pairs of concerns that are traditionally separate, such as fact and fiction, science and art, and commerce and academia. This provocation extends to questions about design itself.

3D Printing and Critical Making

3D Printing allows for relatively cheap and customizable design of objects which are often integrated into critical making projects. There are two type of industrial manufacturing: subtractive Manufacturing: involves shaping a material through a process of chipping / removing some of its substance (think whittling a figure out of wood) and additive Manufacturing: creates by adding material into a product. The basic steps of 3D printing are digital design: design the object you want to print using digital design software OR download a design from a website (like Thingiverse, for example), press print and the printer will begin creating a physical version of your digital design. 3D printers use layerization to create objects. 3D printers use a variety of materials to create objects, including plastic, metal and nylon (Flemming, What is 3D printing?). The Makerbot, for example, uses polylactic acid (PLA), a substance derived from corn. The coiled PLA filament is pulled into the machine via a tube and then heated up by the extruder, causing the PLA to melt. This melted material forms the model’s layers, which is applied in approximately .02 - 1 millimeter layers. The model is built up until it is finished.

Matt Ratto's Publications on Critical Making

1. Ratto, Matt. “Taking Things Apart/Making Things Together: A Critical Making Experiment.” Royal College of Art/Imperial College, London, UK, April 22, 2008.

2. Ratto, Matt and Megan Boler, eds. DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (2014)

3. Ratto, Matt and Garnet Hertz. “Critical Making.” Special Issue on The Culture of Digital Education: Innovation in Art, Design, Science and Technology Practices: Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Accepted, January, 2014.

4. Ratto, Matt, Kirk Jalbert and Sara Wylie. “Critical Making as Research Program: introduction to the forum on Critical Making.” Special Forum issue on Critical Making, The Information Society 30(2). (2014) 85-95.

5. Wylie, Sara, Kirk Jalbert, Shannon Dosemagen & Matt Ratto “Institutions for Civic Technoscience: How Critical Making is Transforming Environmental Research,” The Information Society 30:2, (2014) 116-126.

6. Ratto, Matt, Kirk Jalbert and Sara Wylie, eds. Critical Making Special Forum Issue, The Information Society 30.2 (March 2014).

7. Record, Isaac, Matt Ratto, Adriana Ieraci, Nina Czegledy and Amy Ratelle. “DIY Prosthetics Workshops: ‘Critical Making’ for Public Understanding of Human Augmentation.” International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) 2013, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, June 27–29, 2013.

8.Ratto, Matt. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” The Information Society 27.4 (2011): 252-260.

9. Ratto, Matt. “Open Design and Critical Making.” Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive. Eds. P. Atkinson, M. Avital, B. Mau, R. Ramakers and C. Hummels. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2011. 203-209.

10. Cohn, Marisa, Tobie Kerridge, Ann Light, Silvia Lindtner and Matt Ratto. “Tracing Design(ed) Authority in Critical Modes of Making.” Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2010. New York, USA, August 18–20, 2010. 440-441. (Acceptance 30%)

11. Ratto, Matt. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” Hybrid Design Practices workshop, Ubicomp, Orlando, Florida, USA, September 30-October 3, 2009. (Acceptance 60%)

12. Ratto, Matt and Stephen Hockema. “Flwr Pwr: Tending the Walled Garden.” Walled Garden. Eds. A. Dekker and A. Wolfsberger. Amsterdam: Virtueel Platform, 2009. 51-60.

Students' Publications on Critical Making

1. Resch, G (forthcoming). “Wayfinding in ‘Smart’ Information Space: The Future of Ambient Sensing in Academic Libraries and Beyond,” Faculty of Information Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 1.

2. Record, Isaac, Matt Ratto, Adriana Ieraci, Nina Czegledy and Amy Ratelle. “DIY Prosthetics Workshops: ‘Critical Making’ for Public Understanding of Human Augmentation.” International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) 2013, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, June 27–29, 2013.

3. Erickson, Ingrid, Lisa Nathan, Nassim Jafarinaimi, Cory Knoebel and Matt Ratto. “Values|Design|Critique|Making Workshop,” iSchool Conference, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, February 7–10, 2012.

4. coons, g. & Tissenbaum, M. (2011, February). Non-Standard Bodies. Poster presented as part of the Design Methods for the Information School Curriculum at the iSchools iConference 2011, Seattle, WA.

5. Resch, G & Ratto, M. (2012, February). Building the Makerbot: 3D Printing at the Critical Making Lab and our Study of the Materiality of Information. Poster presented as part of the Collaboration, Convergence & Communities – iSchool Student Conference, Toronto, ON.

6. Resch, G, Jancen, J & Miller, L. (2011, May). ENroute: Turn a Highway into a Museum of Community History. Poster presented as part of the INplay Conference, Toronto, ON.

7. Cohn, Marisa, Tobie Kerridge, Ann Light, Silvia Lindtner and Matt Ratto. “Tracing Design(ed) Authority in Critical Modes of Making.” Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2010. New York, USA, August 18–20, 2010. 440-441.

Master Theses

1. Bélanger, Marie-Eve. (2010). The annotative practices of graduate students: tensions & negotiations fostering and epistemic practice (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

2. Camisso, Jamon. (2010). Embedding metadata: Exploring the ontology of hybrid digital material object (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

3. Coons, Ginger (Virginia). (2011). Colour standardization: Its past and a possible future (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

4. Gamba Bari, Antonio. (2010). Critical assessment of customization discourse in information systems design (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

5. Krauss, Armin Martin. (2010). Dynamic catergorization: What we can learn from the emergent arrangement of physical artifacts in libraries (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

6. Lam, Margaret. (2011). Online music knowledge (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

7. Ree, Robert. (2011). 3D printing: Convergences, fictions, fluidity (MI thesis). University of Toronto.

See also

  1. Critical Technical Practice
  2. Critical Thinking
  3. Critical Design
  4. Speculative Design
  5. Maker Culture
  6. Technology
  7. Arduino
  8. 3D Printing

References

  1. ^ DiSalvo, C (2009). "Design and the Construction of Publics". Design Issues. 1. 25: 48. doi:10.1162/desi.2009.25.1.48.
  2. ^ Ratto, M., & Ree, R. (2012). "Materializing information: 3D printing and social change". First Monday. 17 (7).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Open Design and Critical Making". Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive.
  4. ^ Lukens, Jonathan. "SpeculativeDesignandTechnologicalFluency". International Journal of Learning and Media. 3: 23–39.
  5. ^ Ratto, Matt. “Flwr Pwr: Tending the Walled Garden.” 2-day Critical Making Workshop for the Walled Garden conference, Virtueel Platform, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, November 20–22, 2008.
  6. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 252. doi:10.1080/01972243.2011.583819.
  7. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 254.
  8. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Open Design and Critical Making". Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive.
  9. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 253.
  10. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 258.
  11. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 258.
  12. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 258.
  13. ^ Platt, Charles (2009). Make: Electronics. United States of American: O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp. 1–325.
  14. ^ "About the Lab". Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  15. ^ http://futureeverything.org/events/critical-making/
  16. ^ Williams, Colin C. (2004). "A lifestye choice? Evaluating the motives of do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers. I". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 32 (4/5): 276. doi:10.1108/09590550410534613.
  17. ^ Kuznetsov, S., & Paulos, E. (2010). "Rise of the expert amateur: DIY projects, communities, and cultures". In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries: 295–304.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Blikstein, P. (2013). "Gears of our childhood: constructionist toolkits, robotics, and physical computing, past and future". In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children: 173–182.
  19. ^ Williams, Colin C. (2004). "A lifestye choice? Evaluating the motives of do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers. I". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 32 (4/5): 273. doi:10.1108/09590550410534613.
  20. ^ Lukens, J., & DiSalvo, C. (2011). "Speculative Design and Technological Fluency". International Journal of Learning. 4. 3: 23–40. doi:10.1162/ijlm_a_00080.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  1. Arduino
  2. Open Design Now
  3. Raspberry Pi or Arduino
  4. Critical Making - Paulos Syllabus (Berkeley)
  5. Critical Making - Hertz (2012)
  6. John Maeda: The Art of Critical Making
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