CARACTERÍSTICAS DE LOS PROFESIONALES QUE APLICARON LA AET Una vez decidida la AET conjuntamente con los padres, en el 52,5% (21/40) de las

Despite the critique that agonistic pluralism does not offer practical strategies to negotiate and move forward, design interventions more recently have taken up the call for agonistic forms of design to spark conversations about political life. Design researcher and educator Carl DiSalvo (2010) illustrates the field of ‘design for democracy’ through the lens of Mouffe’s politics and the political by explaining that most design for democracy projects fall under the category of politics. If politics, in Mouffe’s definition, is characterized by the structures and mechanisms through which we organize political life and governance, then designing for politics, as DiSalvo (2010) explains, involves designing interventions that improve and increase access to established political mechanisms. In our society, this could mean interventions to increase voter turnout or creating a more accessible voting system. While this is important and necessary work, as DiSalvo demonstrates, the issue with designing for politics is that it does not facilitate interaction between different, contesting, points of view. Indeed, by focusing on

contestation that is central to political life, as conceptualized by agonistic pluralism (DiSalvo, 2010). DiSalvo offers an alternative: political design, that seeks to make explicit the contesting viewpoints and power dynamics that exist under the political.

In political design, the objective is to create new spaces for contestation, and in the process, create new opportunities for action. DiSalvo (2010) notes that the contestation could be facilitated in either the objects or the processes of design. This means that a political design project could result in some form of tangible object that then provokes and facilitates debate, or the process itself could be characterized by contesting viewpoints working towards some sort of objective.

DiSalvo’s description of political design aligns well with what designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have termed ‘critical design’. Critical design is a form of conceptual design that aims to offer critique as a way to discuss and offer alternatives to current trends in society. Set up as an opposite to what they called “affirmative design,” which supports and amplifies the status quo, critical design is an approach that seeks to ask questions rather than provide answers and is created to make us think instead of persuade us to buy (Dunne & Raby, 2013). In particular, Dunne and Raby were concerned with design’s uncritical enthusiasm for

technological progress, and they viewed critical design as a way to ask questions about technology’s role in our lives and in our understandings of what it means to be human. As an example, the Situation Lab, led by futurists Stuart Candy and Jeff Watson, produced

NaturePodTM:a machine that can be brought to your cubicle that will help you “reap the health benefits of spending time in nature – for productivity, creativity, and stress relief – without even leaving your office.” (Candy, n.d). While the stated purpose of NaturePodTM is to replace time in nature with a more efficient use of time in the office, the critical design object’s actual mission is

to spark a wider conversation around the future of our relationship with the natural environment. A comparison of affirmative and critical design is shown in Figure 002 below.

[a] [b]

Affirmative Problem solving Design as process

Provides answers In the service of industry

For how the world is Science fiction

Futures Fictional functions Change the world to suit us

Narratives of production Anti-art

Research for design Applications Design for production

Fun Concept Design Consumer User Training Makes us buy Innovation Ergonomics Critical Problem finding Design as medium Asks questions In the service of society For how the world could be

Social fiction Parallel worlds Functional fictions Change us to suit the world

Narratives of consumption Applied art

Research through design Implications Design for Debate

Satire Conceptual Design Citizen Person Education Makes us think Provocation Rhetoric

Figure 002: Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s Manifesto of Critical Design: a/b (2013; p. vii)

As designers, Dunne and Raby are ultimately concerned with utility. They are quick to point out that critical design is not necessarily negative, nor is critique. Rather, critique may also be “a gentle refusal, a turning away from what exists, a longing, wishful thinking, a desire, and even a dream. Critical designs are testimonials to what could be, but at the same time, they offer alternatives that highlight weaknesses within existing normality” (Dunne & Raby, 2013, p. 35). Indeed, Dunne and Raby (2013) suggest that this is where critical design differs from commentary; rather than commenting on society’s shortcomings, good critical design creates a space for discussion between the way things are and the way things could be, and it is in this

Critical designers see the value of contestation as contributing to more meaningful conversations about our shared lives and shared futures. In their alignment with political design, I draw inspiration from the idea of public discourse facilitating space for alternative actions. However, what is less clear from this literature is how critical design is aligned with

emancipatory ideals for disenfranchised communities. Little is said about how the creation of a critical design object affects communities, or indeed, the designer. Where the focus of critical design literature is outwards, towards provoking discourse in public spaces, I turn to literature on arts-based research to explore the internal value that art can play in both inspiring dialogue and expressing complicated emotions.