Design is an activity that articulates ways of living in the world and, at the same time, (trans)forms itself. The designed artefacts are inextricably linked to the human design activity, nevertheless they come to life in their own way and formulate on (Fry, 2009). Design is a state and condition of »being-in-the-world« – the process in which »world-making« and »being-made-by-and-in-the-world« are intertwined (Prado de Oliveira Martins, 2017: 25). The key issue regarding practices and design products is, what ways of »being-in-the-world« they form. Design speculations use design as a means of visualisation of the collective futures and an attempt to break up the fatalism, which characterises modern politics. However, they lack an integrated theoretical position, which takes into account the circular nature of design and allows designers to reflect their own design, so practices often result in the poetic reproduction of the status quo. The theories of ontological design and technofeminists theories are proving to be an appropriate starting point for upgrading speculative critical projects and feminist speculations to underline the role of design in the construction of gender – to serve as a materialized theory of design - and at the same time to disseminate the techno-feminist imaginary crucial to political action.
|