What is it about?
This doctoral thesis contextualises the problems of the design, production and consumption of domestic objects in relation to environmental contingencies. Its addresses repair as a strategy to reduce waste and the environmental burdens of hyperconsumerism, and argues for a greater role of creativity and experimentation in how repair is practiced. A particular kind of repair, transformative repair, is proposed as a means to improve the look, function, value and perception of products.
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Why is it important?
Increasing the range and scope of repair has significance for the uptake of repair and its capacity to reduce consumerism and waste. Expanding the styles, techniques and methods of product repair has direct significance to creative practitioners and their potential use of repair in a create service market.
Perspectives
My doctoral research formalised conceptual interests and experimental practices I had developed since 2007 and earlier. The success of this thesis has enabled me to expand my methods into participatory and social design practices of repair, that methodologically test how these practices can be taken up by creative practitioners unfamiliar with repair. My development of this field, the field of transformative repair, indicates it is not just the transformation of objects which is important, but also the potemtial to transform the perception, culture and community practice of repair.
Guy Keulemans
University of New South Wales
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Affect and the Experimental Design of Domestic Products, Leonardo, October 2017, The MIT Press,
DOI: 10.1162/leon_a_01495.
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