Abstract

How can design be socially engaged and politically efficient, as proposed by discourses labeled as critical design? This article introduces a conceptualization and historiography of politically charged design discourse based on philosopher Jacques Rancière’s work on the intersections of politics, aesthetics, and critical artistic practices. By focusing especially on Rancière’s reading of the genealogy of design from Ruskin to constructivism and the Bauhaus, the article aims to show that there is an important connection between design and politics present in Rancière’s thought. Rather than solely revealing the oppressive dimension embedded in designed forms, for Rancière, design is itself a profound process of aesthetical and sensorial reconfiguration of the way in which we perceive and articulate our communal existence in “the shared material world.” The article suggests that this connection is useful for examining the broader encounter of critical design with political theory.

摘要

正如标记为批判性设计的话语所提议的那样，设计如何能够参与社会并具有政治效率？本文基于哲学家雅克·朗西埃 (Jacques Rancière) 在政治、美学和批判性艺术实践的交叉方面的工作，介绍了政治性设计话语的概念化和历史编纂。通过特别关注朗西埃对从拉斯金到建构主义和包豪斯的设计谱系的阅读，本文旨在表明朗西埃的思想中存在设计与政治之间的重要联系。对于朗西埃来说，与其仅仅揭示嵌入在设计形式中的压抑维度，设计本身就是对我们在“共享物质世界”中感知和表达我们共同存在的方式进行美学和感官重构的深刻过程。这篇文章表明，这种联系对于检验批判性设计与政治理论的更广泛的相遇是有用的。