This thesis discusses the design of three systems that were built using Critical Making as an investigative method. The systems are: an RFID antenna that links ISBNs to online metadata; metamash.org, which aggregates ISBN metadata; and doitag.org, which allows users to associate tags with DOI numbers. Each system was designed to interrogate issues related to identification, categorization and the institutional foundations of, and individual practices surrounding, information systems, providing levers to get at deeper ontological issues. Each investigation points in its own way to a profound lack of understanding about the ontology of digital, or hybrid material/digital objects. David Weinberger's ordering scheme for material and digital objects is used because it allows for a discussion of ordering systems in general. However, focusing solely on categorization systems masks more important questions about the ontology of such objects and how building and using such objects fundamentally defines what they are.

This thesis discusses the design of three systems that were built using Critical Making as an investigative method. The systems are: an RFID antenna that links ISBNs to online metadata; metamash.org, which aggregates ISBN metadata; and doitag.org, which allows users to associate tags with DOI numbers. Each system was designed to interrogate issues related to identification, categorization and the institutional foundations of, and individual practices surrounding, information systems, providing levers to get at deeper ontological issues. Each investigation points in its own way to a profound lack of understanding about the ontology of digital, or hybrid material/digital objects. David Weinberger's ordering scheme for material and digital objects is used because it allows for a discussion of ordering systems in general. However, focusing solely on categorization systems masks more important questions about the ontology of such objects and how building and using such objects fundamentally defines what they are.

Design-oriented research is an approach to HCI research that frames HCI as a design discipline. One approach to design research is that of critical making, which incorporates critical thinking and practical ‘making’ into the design process whereby ‘making’ is framed as another context of thinking. Cybertherapy is any computationally mediated psychotherapy intervention technique. Contextually, cybertherapy is situated within the field of Psychology and yet it is argued here the area is non-binary by nature and highly relevant to the field of HCI. This study demonstrates the validity of critical making as a design-oriented research approach to the field of cybertherapy design and beyond. Through the immersive demonstration of critical making for cybertherapy innovation design, the design research approach is evaluated and argued to be a beneficial stance towards such non-binary research and development.

Detta kandidatarbete har som syfte att belysa rollen som glitch kan spela i skapande. Jag ställer mig frågan vad som händer när vi för in ett medvetet brott i en kreativ handling, hur vi behandlar det vi uppfattar som fel eller misstag, och vad som kan hända när vi utforskar det som blivit förkastat som trasigt och obsolet. Dessa frågor har uppstått dels ur en nyfikenhet för det okända och ett ständigt sökande efter nya uttrycksformer, men även ur kritik. Den teknologiska utvecklingen min generation befinner sig i för oss allt hastigare framåt, och jag ifrågasätter hur vi förhåller oss till värdet av medietekniska artefakter när konsumtionshetsen gör sig alltmer påmind. Genom att ägna mig åt studier av glitch och konstformer som uppstått därifrån, second hand och dess kultur samt mediearkeologi har jag bildat mig en grund att stå på som sedan lett mig genom mitt gestaltningsarbete. Med ett kritiskt förhållningssätt har jag använt mig av icke-konventionella metoder och program för att redigera och manipulera media, och reflekterat över resultaten med stöd av forskning och diskussion med andra människor. Jag har utforskat digital glitch i medieformer som jag under mina tre år av studier har bekantat mig med, men även vandrat över fysiska kretskort och undersökt vad som händer när ett konkret brott introduceras i deras förväntade flöde. Resultatet har blivit ett nytt förhållningssätt till utdaterad teknik, en ny vinkel att betrakta kreativitet och skapande från och förhoppningsvis en ökad respekt för vår fortsatta tekniska utveckling. / This bachelor thesis is intended to highlight the role that glitch can have in creation. I pose the question of what happens when we introduce a deliberate disruption in a creative act? How do we treat what we perceive as flaws and mistakes, and what can happen when we explore what has once been rejected as broken and obsolete? These questions have arisen partly from the curiosity about the unknown and a constant search for new forms of expression, but also from criticism. The technological development my generation is experiencing is moving us forward at an ever increasing pace, and it leaves me inquisitive about how we relate to the value of media artifacts when consumerism is becoming more and more prevalent. By studying glitches and their resulting art forms, second-hand and its culture, as well as media archeology, I have formed a foundation on which to base my work. With a critical approach, I have used non-conventional methods and programs to edit and manipulate media, and reflected upon the results supported by both research and discussion with other people. I have explored digital glitches in media that I've worked with during my three years of study, but also traversed physical circuit boards and investigated what happens when a break is introduced in their expected flow. The result is a new approach to outdated technology, a new angle from which to view creativity and creation, and​—​hopefully​—​a shift in respect for our continued technological development.

Med detta kandidatarbete vill vi skapa en koppling mellan vårt lyssnande och de osynliga processer som omringar oss i den digitala teknik vi använder vardagligen. Med Salomé Voegelins okonventionella syn på hur vi lyssnar på vår omgivning samt teorin kring AlgoRHYTHMS som utgångspunkt har vi genomgått en djupgående utforskning av denna relation.Genom att tillämpa Critical Making i en experimentell skapandeprocess med ambitioner´ att hitta en materialitet i det subliminala hittade vi istället ett samspel mellan två osynliga medier som tillsammans bildar en digital materialitet. / With this bachelor thesis our aim to establish a connection between our listening and the invisible processes that surrounds us inside the digital technology we use on a daily basis. With the unconventional views of Salomé Voegelin on how we listen to our surroundings together with the theory of AlgoRHYTHMS as a starting point we have undergone a in-depth exploration of this relation.By applying Critical Making in an experimental creative process with the ambition to find a materiality in the subliminal we instead found an interaction between two invisible mediums which together forms a digital materiality.

The emergence of desktop ‘3D printing’ is not only a technological development, but equally a social and economic phenomenon that actively (and often contentiously) co-produces the material and ideological infrastructures it occupies. Reflecting wider momentum toward digital-material convergence, the current “revolution” in desktop digital fabrication is fundamentally attributable to the efforts of decentralized Maker and DIY communities who, connected through digital networks, practice citizen-led technological experimentation and occupy novel spaces for innovation and entrepreneurship. Employing hybrid qualitative methods that include Critical Making, this research explores the following themes: rhetoric versus reality, the divisive notion of ‘digital craft’, perceptions of authenticity, as well as cultural momentum manifested in decentralization, convergence, stratification, and iteration. An overarching theme emerges: 3D printing is a fluid phenomenon – in literal, metaphorical, technological and cultural ways.

The emergence of desktop ‘3D printing’ is not only a technological development, but equally a social and economic phenomenon that actively (and often contentiously) co-produces the material and ideological infrastructures it occupies. Reflecting wider momentum toward digital-material convergence, the current “revolution” in desktop digital fabrication is fundamentally attributable to the efforts of decentralized Maker and DIY communities who, connected through digital networks, practice citizen-led technological experimentation and occupy novel spaces for innovation and entrepreneurship. Employing hybrid qualitative methods that include Critical Making, this research explores the following themes: rhetoric versus reality, the divisive notion of ‘digital craft’, perceptions of authenticity, as well as cultural momentum manifested in decentralization, convergence, stratification, and iteration. An overarching theme emerges: 3D printing is a fluid phenomenon – in literal, metaphorical, technological and cultural ways.

This document investigates a set of projects I call DIY Infrastructure, in which designers are building alternative infrastructural systems. Through these projects, new actors-often non-experts-reveal and re-imagine long-established social and technological relationships which were previously off limits to them. These projects are significant to the study of design and digital media for the following reasons: First, they detail a new area of design. The designers of DIY infrastructure present an expansion of the scope of design coupled with a nuanced and almost paradoxical understanding of infrastructure as an intractable and exceedingly complex problem. At the same time, their work reveals the extensive social and political effects of existing design decisions-the far-reaching consequences of the design decisions which formed existing infrastructure. These decisions are in play across a variety of scales of time and space, affecting individual bodies as much as continental ecosystems, and shaping personal behavior as much as global commerce and trade. Second, they expand the scope of digital media studies. Digital media studies often overlook infrastructure, in spite of their interdependence. Digital media are involved in areas including the control and monitoring of the electrical system, the treatment and movement of water and sewage, and the routing of freight through intermodal shipping systems. The study of DIY infrastructure design, and infrastructure more broadly, exposes the role of digital media in shaping these overlooked aspects of modern life. There is an invisible relationship between digital media, infrastructure, and political authority, and it includes the interdependence of infrastructure and the contingent nature of our ongoing reliance on these complex sociotechnical systems. For example, Cloacina is the project of two activists developing a new municipal waste disposal system in which a decentralized networked system significantly lessens the amount of water used in processing human waste. Another project, Feral Trade Courier, employs the sort of shipping database we might associate with FedEx or UPS to facilitate an alternative shipping infrastructure, in which volunteers transport goods in an ad hoc freight network. I begin by surveying and defining DIY practice, delineating the properties of infrastructure, and determining the ways that those properties and practices can be augmented or diminished by the affordances of digital media. Next, I review the attributes that these DIY infrastructure projects share before revealing their significance through in-depth case studies. Finally, each of these case studies highlights a particular lesson from DIY infrastructure. Feral Trade Courier exposes the role of the social and the subjective in the design of logistics systems. Village Telco and Fluid Nexus show us that the relationship between established infrastructure and DIY infrastructure can be both complementary and antagonistic. Cloacina provides us an example of a way that DIY infrastructure might scale up and effect lasting sociotechnical change. Whether motivated to reveal or overcome dependence on infrastructure, address flaws in its design, or correct externalities generated by its use, new designers have begun to engage with the problem of infrastructure in new ways. This document analyzes these design projects through a series of case studies, synthesizing a new perspective on the study of infrastructure through design and on the scope of digital media research along the way.

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This Master thesis is about building-related public art as future cultural heritage and its management, preservation, and digital accessibility from a value perspective. Furthermore, the aim is to develop proposals for a management model and public tools that could benefit the accessibility of public art and thus also its preservation. A management model that provides an overview of management objects of public art and that can be shared with the public to create understanding, participation, and interaction. The thesis includes a critical report on the planning of a GIS project. GIS is a geographic information system, it provides tools for creating, editing, and analyzing data.The purpose of the critical report is to highlight that GIS can be used in an easily way but also requires a critically reflexive approach. The approach in the GIS project is critical, interdisciplinary and the mapping is based on cultural presence as a method. The result shows that geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a useful tool and can be easily use with the free ArcGIS software. There is some of the areas that GIS users need to handle as risk analysis, legislation, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. It is important that the material created with GIS is shared with the public to create understanding, participation, and interaction. Thus, it is relevant to contextualize the content from a historical perspective and in relation to the present and the target group. Therefore, is important to keep in mind that norms and values change over time and that making the material available can mean reaching a global audience, an intercultural approach could be beneficial.