Raising the Dead: Repair as Re-appropriation in Critical Design
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Abstract
In this article, I examine Dale Hardiman and Stephen Royce’s critical design work Open Garden: Digital Mirror (2020) to explore their approach to the reuse and modification of electronic waste (e-waste) and proprietary software of the iPhone 8. Drawing on Mark Fisher’s theory of the weird, along with Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘queer use’ and John Scanlan’s cultural theory of garbage, I consider how the designers’ conspicuously clandestine re-appropriation of the effective and affective properties of discarded devices animates the physical and metaphysical possibilities of repair. I demonstrate how re-appropriation as repair can precipitate a form of weird design that provokes reflection on the possibilities and potentialities of deviance and departure within the discipline.
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