Categories
Provocations

Design Memoirs

As designers, what do with the struggles or difficulties that design cannot solve? How might our design processes themselves orient us towards solutions in spaces where we might need other forms of witnessing or attending? In a project called “Making Design Memoirs” we explored these questions through and within experiences of parenting. What we suggest in the work is that Making Design Memoirs might be a way to readapt design as a mode of storytelling, specifically a way to tell personal stories about how something feels, felt or may be felt differently in the future. The concept emerged from a very personal collaboration between Laura Devendorf, Kristina Anderson, and Aisling Kelliher. Specifically, we started the project as an attempt to understand the limits of design–what does it mean to design if it’s not about making something “better” or “easier.” Specifically, we thought back on our experiences as mothers and tried to develop methods to investigate that experience through design. In this way, we try to make “memoirs” with objects that tell of our felt experiences and that bring out practices of witnessing and honoring instead of resolving.

Publications:

Making Design Memoirs: Understanding and Honoring Difficult Experiences
Laura Devendorf, Kristina Andersen, Aisling Kelliher
CHI – April 2020
Best Paper Honorable Mention

The Fundamental Uncertainties of Mothering: Finding Ways to Honor Endurance, Struggle, and Contradiction
Laura Devendorf, Kristina Andersen, Aisling Kelliher
ToCHI Special Issue on Designing for Women’s Health

Categories
Provocations

Digital Crafts-Machine-Ship

Some friends and I recently collaborated on a written piece devoted to the topic of crafts-machine-ship, which is our rethinking the relevance and meaning of “craft” within the field of human-computer interaction. Led by Kristina Anderson, a good friend and fellow TC2-tamer, the piece brings together from design, philosophy, textiles, and electronic music to express how we want more from our machines. In doing so, we consider the wisdom of luddites, describe a craft machine as swimming, and playfully interject the word “sammunsurium” which is an amazing and untranslatable Danish word that I have come to learn means something of a beautiful mess. you can read it here:

 

Categories
Provocations

HCI Amusements

In May, Laura presented some new research at the annual conference on human computer interaction (CHI) describing what the field of Human-Computer Interaction might learn from the artist network known as Fluxus. The work was a collaborative project between Laura, Kristina Andersen, Daniela Rosner, Ron Wakkary and James Pierce. The conference talks were not recorded, but you can view the transcript of our presentation below or read the paper here:

Categories
Open Source

Overshot Weave Generator

I was in love with the fabric below and wanted to weave a similar pattern for myself. I didn’t have the tie up, but I did have the photo of the fabric, so I reverse engineered it. I found it really difficult to design the overall patterning of the stripes and tie ups at the same time so I wrote a processing script to allow me to more playfully make patterns with my keyboard, and have those generate my tie up. I released the code on GitHub so others could do the same.