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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 Assistant Professor and director of the Critical Making lab in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Matt Ratto describes one of the main goals of critical making that he is currently exploring is: 

    “...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]

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, Ardruino, 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 to describe his workshop activities that linked conceptual reflection and technical making. This concept stimulates that learning is influenced by the learner's participation towards creating and/or making things within the technological context.[5] High degrees of participation will help improve the learning activities. Matt's first publication to use the term was in 2009. with his permissionIn, Garnet Hertz adopted the term critical making for a series of handmade ‘zines he put out in 2012, where Hertz collected a number of people’s ideas associated with the term. http://www.conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/. Afterwards, Hertz and Matt have continued to collaborate around these ideas. Also in 2012, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) began using the term as well, first as a title for their strategic plan for 2012-2017 and next as part of the title of an edited collection - The Art of Critical Making: Rhode Island School of Design on Creative Practice. These implications popularized critical making among institutions. 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 [6] 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.[7] 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

The 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.[8] 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”.[9]

Practice

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.[10] 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[11] 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.[12]

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 [13]. 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.

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). ,

Concepts Relate to Critical Making

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) [14] . Today, TET increases the technological standard of DIY,[15] 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.[16] “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).[17]

Spectacular Design and Critical Making

“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).”[18]

3D Printing and Critical Making

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.[19] 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.[20] One question that needs to be addressed in the future, however, is the amount of digital technology evolved in today's life, especially the impact on internet addition of teenagers.[21]

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

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

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

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

See also

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

References

  1. ^ DiSalvo, C (2009). "Design and the Construction of Publics". Design Issues. 1. 25: 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. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  5. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 252.
  6. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 254.
  7. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Open Design and Critical Making". Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  8. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 253.
  9. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 258.
  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. ^ Platt, Charles (2009). Make: Electronics. United States of American: O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp. 1–325.
  13. ^ "About the Lab". Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ 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)
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Lukens, J., & DiSalvo, C. (2011). "Speculative Design and Technological Fluency". International Journal of Learning. 4. 3: 23–40.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Ratto, Matt (2011). "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in technology and Social Life". The Information Society. 27: 258.
  20. ^ Platt, Charles (2009). Make: Electronics. USA: O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 20.
  21. ^ Wallace, Patricia (2014). "Internet Addiction Disorder and Youth". EMBO reports: 2.
  1. Arduino
  2. Open Design Now
  3. Raspberry Pi or Arduino
  4. Critical Making
  5. Critial Making Concept Lab
  6. John Maeda_The Art of Critical Making
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