Critical making

The term 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. The main focus of critical making is open design, which includes digital software and hardware. Software usually refers to the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE). Hardware refers to computer, Ardruino, or any other devices that are used in critical making activities. People usually reference spectacular design when explaining critical making. More info

Matt Ratto (Assistant Professor and director of the Critical Making lab in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto) advanced the concept of critical making, which stimulates that learning is influenced by the learner's participation towards creating and/or making things within the technological context. High degrees of participation will help improve the learning activities. 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 productio n.

Prior studies have noted the separation between critical thinking and physical “making”. Specifically, experts in technology lack the knowledge from art, and vice versa. 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

Importance

The empirical findings in Ratto’s research provide a potential solution for what he refers as “wicked problems”. This concept refers to issues in which no consensus exists with regard to problem definition. In this context, critical making is successful. It encourages participants to collaborate during the process of “making”, as what Ratto called, “a mode of engagement”.

Practice

By way of illustration, Ratto came up with the concept “flwr pwr” in critical making scenario, which was introduced to shows how people gain knowledge from critical making. 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 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. As a result, by connecting Arduino to computer through use cable, critical making allows designers to create arts using technologies.

The Future

The concept of critical making is fairly new. The popularity of its making labs suggests the importance of developing better open-source hardware and software, and involving larger communities of artists, designers, and engineers. It seems to have a promising future by quickly adopting the 3D printing. However, further research should be done to investigate the balancing act between technical and social scholarly expertise. Overall, Critical making allows an easy transition from technological coding to design, which may be a force to reconnect society and technology in the future.

See also

1. Critical Thinking
2. Critical Design
3. Technology
4. Arduino
5. 3D Printing

External links

1. Arduino
2. Open Design Now
3. Raspberry Pi or Arduino
4. Critical Making