Designed Conflict Terrirories – Open Democracy – 2014-02

Essay for Open Democracy about Designed Conflict Territories and the position of design in change-making.

“Critical design, a conceptual offshoot of industrial and product design, has been encouraging debate through provocative design work for the last ten years. It may now be time to use the established principles of the critical approach to design to actually create change by using it in tandem with technology to create new digital territories for political commons. These Designed Conflict Territories would take on the role of the commons lost to proprietary and securitised technology which was originally promised as political liberation as well as the gradual collapse of the effectiveness of protest.

But there are also problems with this proposal, at a point in time where critics begin to doubt the veracity of critical design and designers as a whole, are fearful of appearing subjective to a political viewpoint. Should designers as masters of contemporary communication radicalise themselves to encourage or enact change?”