CURRENT

When put to Use/used the designed artifact confounds...
[Users] have to deal with the uncertainty of the form and
their ability to maintain usual relations with space, time,

and the social encounters that shape them.

the way we engage with the clothing we wear [19]. Sequencing and
sorting that is a part of everyday use practices can be linked to both
practical understanding and abstract knowledge [18]. They are
integral to products that are comprised of both material dynamics
and mental activities.

Fletcher’s work points to use as a strategic means of getting at
new knowledge/new systems of knowing. It draws us to consider
the potential of use (and it’s strategic application) as a means of
re-thinking designed products and systems. Revised use scenar-
ios—Critical Use—as a way to re-route existing behaviors and
affectively encourage new alternatives, in this case, pertaining
to clothing.

CRITICAL USE

SIMILARITIES-ALIGNMENT Critical Use pulls on all of the design

and research strategies described above. Similar to Critical Mak-
ing and Heuristic Inquiry it acknowledges that open source and
embodied process of knowing are integral to critical thinking. It
looks to existing evolving engagement with artifacts and use prac-
tices for insight. As with Critical Design and Critical Making it
involves disruptive artifacts.

ARTIFACTS EMPLOYED Provocation as raison d’étre: Critical Use
seeks to confound intentionally with the aid of idea artifacts

[9]. The Situationalist International’s analysis of contemporary
capitalist society and approaches for social transformation set
precedence [31]. The Legacy of Detournement and tactics used to
reveal new material conditions (potentials) and “enable divergent
political affairs” through making strange are also employed by:
Critical Design, Critical Making, Adversarial Design, Slow Design
[13]. These approaches use artifacts and accompanying scenarios
to throw those participating off their usual course as a means of
re-understanding.

DIFFERENCES Unlike with Critical Design, the leverage points for
Critical Use are participatory; unlike Critical Making, they
are ongoing.

PARTICIPATION Examples of Critical Use reject scenarios that
station the user as observer and passive consumer of the visual.
Similar to Guy Debord who critiqued the capitalist infatuation

and manipulation of the “spectacle,” Critical Use seeks active
participation [10]. This is seen as a means to get past passive social
relationships, between people (and between people and things)
mediated by images: to side step the problematic display and con-
sume dynamic often attributed to mainstream Design [31]. Critical
Use refuses performances and postures that relegate individuals

and artifacts to isolated positions of observer and the observed.

This intent to connect people to creative acts—to affecting
design—is similar to aspirations of Fluxus and Critical Making.
Critical Use attempts facilitating “non-hierarchical ways of mak-
ing and knowing” through the ongoing amalgamation of design
constituents of Use: users, artifacts, actions [37, 25].

ONGOING Use isa fluid space. While there are markers, evidence
of use is implicitly always about moving and adjusting—about
flux. There is nothing static about use. Critical Use asserts that
embodied knowledge should not only be considered at the front
end but also adapted and applied on an ongoing basis [9]. Use is
considered a key mechanism to afford new meanings to the prod-
ucts we engage with [18]. Knowledge garnered through ongoing
provocative relations with products (through use) is applied to
affect change.

This application of Deleuze and Guattari’s “and... and... and...”
rhizome contingent [11] and access to Design that facilitates
conjunctive arrangements that do “not follow the lines of a pre-
conceived patterned or an embedded program” moves the user
and the design artifact into an ongoing state of negotiation [1]. The
focus is shifted away from the front end “lived experience of (Crit-
ical) making” [26, 32]. The object, unlike those found in Critical
Design is never final delineated by an end point). With Critical
Use we offer ourselves, and others, the possibility to rethink exist-
ing artifact—action ecosystems.

(+] A DISRUPTIVE ARTIFACT—USE EQUATION Critical Use seeks to ply
and design speculative propositions in order to enable new sets
of artifacts/systems. It is intent on making us question assumed
approaches. Through their semi disruptive nature these propo-
sitions instigate new use situations. In doing so they facilitate a
re-patterning of contemporary circumstances and conditions.

In Summer 2015 three individuals (including myself) wore our
plus(+) template for an extended time (anywhere from 7 to 38
consecutive days). The experience was provocative and built off
an earlier exploration done in 2013 (8 participants for one day). It
placed us in positions that had us rethinking our use and involve-
ment with clothing, the spaces we inhabit and the people, animals
we interact with. As a quasi-disruptive form the plus(+) allows us
a critical platform, a place to deposit and reposition our biases and
experiences towards clothing.

How does this play out? An unusual but vaguely recognizable
form is constructed and used. This open source form is made
based on the individual’s desires, needs, whims. It may be docu-
mented before it is used—out of its usual context (at the lake, on
the pavement of a parking lot, hanging from a tree, suspended