Design and the Construction

of Publics
Carl DiSalvo

In his 1927 book The Public and Its Problems,1 John Dewey sought to
address the possibilities and inhibitors of collective political action
in then contemporary times. Characteristic of his pragmatic thought,
Dewey was interested in addressing the question of how a public is
constituted, and how the constitution of a public is thwarted, in order
to expound a set of propositions delineating the potentialities and
conditions of collective political action. For Dewey, the philosophical
investigation of the public could not be divorced from the “facts” of
everyday life, or the need and desire to accomplish change in the
civic arena. His treatment of the public as a philosophical subject
thus was grounded in the concrete situations, experiences, and
materiality of everyday life. As such, The Public and Its Problems stood
as a robust inquiry that countered abstract discussions of “the state,”
and articulated the opportunities and challenges of participatory
democratic practices.
Indeed, although The Public and Its Problems is nearly a century
old, it is still relevant and productive today, particularly in the
context of design studies. It is relevant because it links with contem-
porary world conditions through its pluralistic stance, endorsing a
public that is broad, inclusive, and multiple. It is productive because
it provides numerous points of intersection with both design theory
and professional design activity that suggest novel courses for
thinking about and doing design. Specifically, within The Public and
Its Problems are leads to investigating and understanding the ways
in which the products and processes of design intersect with publics.
Of these leads, the notion that publics are “constructed” is perhaps
most salient to contemporary design because it prompts a consid-
eration of the means by which publics are assembled; begging the
question: “How does, or might, design contribute to the construction
of publics?”
Beyond academic inquisitiveness, this question is significant
1 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems with regard to the renewed interest in the intersection of technology,
(Athens, OH: Swallow Press Books, Henry
aesthetics, engineering, and politics; which surfaces “design” and
Holt & Company, 1927).
“the public” as fundamental topics requiring address. Since the
2 The documentation for the exhibition
Massive Change can be found online late 1990s, there has been a proliferation of projects that examine
at www.massivechange.com, last and experiment with the capability and role of design (broadly
referenced on November 26, 2007. A construed) in increasing societal awareness, and motivating and
book, also entitled Massive Change, enabling political action. This is evident in a diversity of endeavors,
accompanied the exhibition. See, Bruce
ranging from comprehensive exhibits such as Massive Change2 to the
Mau and Jennifer Leonard, Massive
Change (London: Phaidon Press, 2004).
© 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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 work of individuals such as Natalie Jeremijenko3 and collectives such
as Futurefarmers.4 Making visible and known the complex situations
of contemporary society, so that people might take action on those
situations, is a common objective among many such projects, echoing
(if not always referencing) Dewey’s concerns in The Public and Its
Problems. Indeed, Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel’s exhibition and
accompanying book project Making Things Public: Atmospheres of
Democracy5 began an inquiry into this subject. Invoking Dewey,
Latour, and Weibel asked the question: “How are things made
public?” The complimentary question, “How are publics made with
things?” remains unaddressed—but it is exactly this question that
also should be asked as the products and processes of design are
increasing politicized and used for political ends.
The notion that publics are constructed, and that the products
and processes of design might contribute to the construction of
publics, provides a valuable theme to conceptualize, describe, and
critique a range of contemporary projects. The purpose of this essay
is to articulate one way design might contribute to the construction
3 Natalie Jerimejenko’s work has been
of publics; and from that articulation, provide grounds for future
widely recognized throughout the art,
scholarly criticism and assessment of such projects and activities.
design, and engineering worlds. Her
project Feral Robot Dogs was included in This articulation serves two purposes. First, it provides a means for
the 2006 Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, scholars in design studies to better understand and respond to one
Design Life Now, and is documented course of the possible relationships between design and collective
in the exhibition catalog curated and political action. Second, it provides the opportunity to contribute to
authored by Barbara Bloemink, Brooke
an emerging, reinvigorated discourse on the public occurring across
Hodge, Ellen Lupton, and Matilda
McQuaid, Design Life Now: National
the arts, humanities, and social sciences; and to offer a position from
Design Triennial 2006 (New York: Cooper- design studies that expresses a distinctly intimate knowledge of the
Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian Institution, made and the making of things.
2007). For an overview of Jerimejenko’s
work, see her Website at: www.nyu.
The Deweyan Public
edu/projects/xdesign, last referenced on
This inquiry into design and the construction of publics begins with a
November 26, 2007.
4 Futurefarmers work has been recognized more thorough understanding of the Deweyan public. The assertion
in numerous exhibitions, most notably in that publics are not a priori existing masses is central to the notion
the 2003 Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, of the construction of publics. The public is not something that has
Inside Design Now, and is documented been and always will be. It is neither universal nor an abstraction.
in the exhibition catalog curated and
Rather, for Dewey, the public is a specifiable and discernible entity
authored by Barbara Bloemink, Brooke
Hodge, Ellen Lupton, and Matilda
that is inextricable from its conditions of origin. More precisely, for
McQuaid, Inside Design Now: National Dewey, the public is an entity brought into being through issues for
Design Triennial 2003 (New York: Cooper- the purpose of contending with these issues in their current state and
Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in anticipation of the future consequences of these issues. This notion
2004). For an overview of Futurefarmers
of the public is repeated throughout The Public and Its Problems:
work, see their Website at: futurefarm-
The public consists of all those who are affected by the
ers.com, last referenced on November
26, 2007. indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that
5 Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, is it deemed necessary to have those consequences system-
Making Things Public: Atmospheres of atically cared for.6
Democracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2005).
6 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems,
15–16.

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 and
Those indirectly and seriously affected for good or for evil
form a group distinctive enough to require recognition and
a name. The name selected is “The Public.”7
and
Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences
of conjoint and interacting behavior call a public into
existence having a common interest in controlling these
consequences.8

The bond of a public to its conditions of origin is an inevitable

outcome of the situatedness of publics. Publics arise from, and in
response to, issues that are qualified by the context in which they
are experienced. This has the effect of producing multiple publics
from a single issue. For example, as Jason Corburn describes in Street
Science (an ethnography of the intersections of local knowledge
and community health planning), Hasidic Jews and Latinos in
the same Brooklyn neighborhood facing the same environmental
injustice responded very differently to the circumstances and
consequences due to differences in cultural attitudes concerning the
open discussion of health matters.9 Each of these groups would, for
Dewey, be a different public, and this scenario exemplifies how a
single, even shared, issue might result in a multiplicity of publics.
In the same book, Corburn also discusses the relevance of different
visual treatments of maps and spatial data, and how these different
visual treatments impacted the construed efficacy of the artifacts
by novice cartographers and professional health researchers.10 The
diverse readings of the same artifact reveal differences in cultural
assumptions of knowledge and truth, and consequently, multiple
publics, which are delineated by their different interpretations of a
shared representation.
In addition to the notion that publics are situated and
multiple, an important characteristic of Dewey’s public, which distin-
guishes it from other theories and refreshes its potency today, is that
the Deweyan public is not exclusive to a particular class or social
milieu. A Deweyan public avoids having to manage the negotiations
between a bourgeois and proletariat public required in navigating
7 Ibid., 35. the work of Habermas11 and Negt and Kluge;12 arguably the other
8 Ibid., 126 theorists whose work on the public has had the most significant
9 Jason Corburn, Street Science impact on contemporary discourse. Although, in spirit, Habermas
(Cambridge: MA: MIT Press, 2005).
shares much with Dewey; the “public sphere,” as Habermas depicts
10 Ibid.
it, is more structured and confined than a Deweyan public. Indeed,
11 Jurgen Habermas, Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere the many and often contestational public spheres of Negt and Kluge
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). are closer to the Deweyan public. The benefit of Dewey is that this
12 Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Public tension between the bourgeois and proletariat is avoided through
Sphere and Experience: Toward an his stance of pluralism, which does not discriminate among the
Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian
wide-ranging possible places of and actors within a public.
Public Sphere (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

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 The Constructed Public and Its Problems
Publics are constructed in the sense that they are brought together
through and around issues. But the issues themselves do not exhibit
the agency to assemble people. Rather, it is the actions and effects of
others communicating issues and their consequences, that prompt
a public to come into being. This act of communication is both a
problem for the construction of publics and a place where design
contributions occur.
For Dewey, the problem of the public was not a problem
of definition—it was a problem of action. The question of what
constitutes a public served to highlight the concern of how a public
is—or is not—constituted. The challenge of public action is traced
to the inability of a public to form: before a public acts it must come
into being. This inability to form, or form effectively, is not because
of a lack of issues, but rather because the issues resist identification
and articulation, leaving publics unformed and tentative. As Dewey
states:
An inchoate public is capable of organization only when
indirect consequences are perceived, and when it is possible
to project agencies which order their occurrence. At present,
many consequences are felt rather than perceived; they
are suffered, but they cannot be said to be known, for they
are not, by those who experience them, referred to their
origins. It goes then without saying that agencies are not
established which canalize the streams of social action and
thereby regulate them, Hence publics are amorphous and
unarticulated.13

Perceptive of Dewey in 1927 and of profound relevance today,

particularly in the context of design, is the effect of technology on
the formation of publics.
But the machine age has so enormously expanded,
multiplied, intensified, and complicated the scope of
indirect consequences, have formed such immense and
consolidated unions in action, on an impersonal rather than
community basis, that the resultant public cannot identify
and distinguish itself.14

Little seems to have changed since 1927, except perhaps that the
conditions of concern expressed by Dewey have been amplified, or
at least seem to be more broadly “felt” to use his terminology. The
reach and effects of technology are so pervasive and complicated
that the untangling of source, course, and consequence has become
a daunting imperative. It is precisely within this contemporary
socio-technical mess of people, technologies, and objects (a mess that
Dewey’s theory of the public is quite apt for negotiating) that this
13 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems,
inquiry into design and the construction of publics is situated.
131.
14 Ibid., 126
By understanding the role of issues to publics and their

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 formation, we may now more precisely inquire into design and
the construction of publics. Following from Dewey, a fundamental
challenge in the formation of publics is making the conditions and
consequences of an issue apparent and known. One way that design
might contribute to the construction of publics is by the application
of designerly means to this task. But what are these means, and what
about them makes them designerly?

Identifying Design Tactics

Design tactics are designerly means directed towards the
construction of publics. Tactics, in this case, references the work
of de Certeau and his discussion of tactics and strategies in The
Practice of Everyday Life.15 To de Certeau, strategies are expressions
and structures of power exerted by institutions (broadly construed)
that attempt to prescribe behavior and courses of action. In contrast,
tactics are means developed by people to circumvent or negotiate
strategies towards their own objectives and desires. In a strict sense
(that is, adhering closely to de Certeau), these designerly means
are both strategies and tactics.16 But emphasizing their tactical
qualities is valuable for producing fitting descriptions. Framing the
designerly means directed towards the construction of publics as
tactics broadens the scope of who participates, how, and in what
contexts, because design tactics may be used in projects outside
of what we commonly consider design, by people other than we
commonly consider designers. While design tactics draw on familiar
design activities and forms (that is, they reference strategies), they are
not the rote application of existing techniques. More often, they are
adjustments to, appropriations, or manipulations of design products
and processes to accommodate purposes beyond the common, often
historically and professionally constrained, purposes of design.
Two such design tactics can be readily identified. These are
the tactics of “projection” and “tracing.” Each speaks to Dewey’s
concern for making the conditions and consequences of an issue
apparent and known such that a public may form. In addition,
while each tactic is grounded in the activities and forms of design,
each interprets and extends the familiar products and processes of
design, producing novel artifacts and events contributing towards
the construction of publics.

The Tactic of Projection

15 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of
Within the context of the construction of publics, the tactic of
Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA: University of
projection can be defined as the representation of a possible set of
California Press, 1984).
16 For some, labeling these designerly future consequences associated with an issue. Projections are based
means as tactics may seem to be in facts (or least information considered fact)—they are not fictions.
a misuse of de Certeau’s theory. Projections are an advanced indication of what might be, informed
Admittedly, these designerly means by knowledge of the past and present, and rendered by means of
often are produced from within or in
a skilled supposition of how the “yet to come” might occur and to
conjunction with institutions of power,
thus conflicting with de Certeau.
what effect.

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 Figure 1 (left) The tactic of projection is grounded in the established
Poo Lunchbox, from the exhibit Is This Your design practice of scenarios. But in the context of the construction
Future? Photo courtesy of Anthony Dunne
publics, projections are not developed to suggest or direct possible
and Fiona Raby, © 2004.
courses of action, as is often is the purpose of scenarios and similar
Figure 2 (right) techniques. The purpose of a projection is to make apparent the
Poo Scenario from the exhibit Is This Your possible consequences of an issue. In a recent essay, Margolin makes
Future? Photo courtesy of Jason Evans, a useful distinction between predictive and prescriptive scenarios.17
© 2004.
While predictive scenarios suggest what might happen, prescriptive
scenarios “embody strongly articulated visions of what should
happen.”18 Within Margolin’s framework, the tactic of projection is
closest in spirit to a predictive scenario. In addition to the nonpre-
scriptive quality of a projection, the tactic is further characterized
by the proficient use of design to express the range and complexity
of possible consequences in an accessible and compelling manner.
It is the particularities of this proficiency that qualify the projection
as a design tactic, as opposed to a strategy or technique of planning
or marketing.
17 Victor Margolin, “Design: The Future and The exhibit Is This Your Future? developed by Anthony
the Human Spirit,” Design Issues 23:3
Dunne, Fiona Raby, and Onkar Singh (with photographs by Jason
(Summer 2007).
18 Ibid., 6.
Evans) is an exceptional case in point of projection. As designers and
19 See Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, educators, Dunne and Raby are well known for their development
Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic of “Critical Design,” 19 which they regard as an alternative to
Objects (Basel: Birkhäuser Press, mainstream design in that the goal is the use of design to expose
2001) and Anthony Dunne, Hertzian
and explore the conditions and trajectories of contemporary design
Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic
rather than the utilitarian problem-solving or surface-styling that
Experience, and Critical Design
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, New Edition, has historically characterized design (particularly industrial design).
2006). They have advanced this agenda through a series of books and

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 high-profile projects, as well as curriculum developed as part of the
Design Interactions program at the Royal College of Art. Recently,
Dunne and Raby have begun to use the phrase “Design for Debate”
to describe their work. This does not signal a move away from a
critical stance, but provides a useful elucidation of their approach
and intentions.
In 2004, Dunne, Raby, and Singh mounted an exhibition at
the Science Museum of London examining possible future courses
and outcomes of energy research and the role of individuals in the
everyday production of energy. The result was surprising. Entitled
“Is This Your Future?” Dunne, Raby, and Singh developed three
scenarios grounded in contemporary scientific research that projected
unconventional and yet imaginable futures. In “Hydrogen,” people
are responsible for the production of their own sources of energy,
Figure 3 for example hydrogen. In “Human Poo,” children are expected to
Teddy Bear Blood Bag, from the exhibit Is This save their bodily waste as a source of energy (Figure 1 and 2). And in
Your Future? Photo courtesy of Anthony Dunne “Meat Eating Products,” energy is harvested from the killing of pets
and Fiona Raby, © 2004. (Figure 3). As Dunne and Raby state in their project documentation,
while each of these scenarios may at first seem outlandish, they are
in fact no more outlandish than the more typical “Wonderful World
of Tomorrow” exhibits which tell a tale (perhaps more unrealistic)
of the glorious opportunities of biotechnology:
The exhibit is aimed at children between the ages of 7 and
12. Everywhere they look they will see images showing
how bright our technological future will be once we
embrace new energy sources like Hydrogen. But things
are not so simple with every new technology there are of
course other consequences—economic, cultural and ethical.
With this project, we wanted to encourage children to think
about the implications of three different technologies, all
real, but some more likely to happen than others.20

The scenarios in Is This Your Future? exemplify the tactic of the

project in that they employ design to express possible outcomes
of pursing current themes in the science and technology of energy
production. Considering them within the conceptual frame of the
tactic of projection provides a means for understanding, or at least
inquiring into, how they contribute to an increased perception of
the issues of energy production and, more broadly, biotechnology.
One particularly relevant feature of the projections is that they
present the interwoven spread of possible consequences, each of
which, in turn, may become an issue in and of itself. For example,
although one may be in favor of fossil fuel alternatives, the prospect
20 Excerpted from an interview with of using living organisms for energy may be repugnant: in this
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby by Regine case the issue of alternative energy intersects with, or gives rise to,
Debatty for We-Make-Money-Not-Art. issues pertaining to the treatment of animals. Thus, a more nuanced
Available online at: www.we-make-
read of these projections, beyond a simple emotional response to
money-not-art.com/archives/009389.php,
last referenced on November 29, 2007.
the abjectness of the scenarios, surfaces future ethical quandaries

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 within energy production and biotechnology, prompting awareness
of and reflection on what might be considered in Dewey’s terms the
“indirect consequences”21 of an issue.
The specifics of how design is employed in this project are
significant. The scenarios constructed by Dunne, Raby, and Singh
are striking exemplars of the tactic of projection because of the
thorough and expert use of design skill in interpreting and extrapo-
lating current scientific and technological research. Each is presented
through a set of well-crafted product models, staged photographs
of use, and accompanying text (See Figures 1, 2, and 3 again). The
thorough and expert use of design skill suggests a defining charac-
teristic of a designerly approach to the construction of publics: the
activity of making apparent is pursued with sophisticated attention
to the aesthetic characteristics of possible future conditions. The
products models are made to appear realistic and alluring. The
formal qualities of the models and photographs—the choice of
materials, colors, shapes, and composition—are deftly fashioned. The
projection is plausible and persuasive because the representations
are so easily consumed in the present (they are visually striking)
and imaginable to be consumed in the future (they appear like we
envisage such “real” products would appear). It is in this sense that
the use of the phrase “rendered by means of a skilled supposition” is
so appropriate to describe the tactic of projection. The design tactic of
projection is distinct by its application of the ability of representation
and also by the thorough knowledge of the processes and trends of
making designed things. It is through the intimate understanding
of how complex ideas are transformed into products, services, and
artifacts that the designer is able to persuasively infer what that
future might be like.

The Tactic of Tracing

As a tactic, tracing takes on dual meanings. First, tracing
is a following back to what Dewey calls “the origins of an
issue.”22Inherent in tracing is the activity of revealing, of exposing
the underlying structures, arguments, and assumptions of an issue.
Second, tracing is an activity of “mark-making.” To trace is to
follow and record the presence and movement of an artifact, event,
or idea. Within the context of the construction of publics the tactic
of tracing can be defined as the use of designerly forms to detail
and communicate, and to make known, the network(s) of materials,
actions, concepts, and values that shape and frame an issue over
time.
Communication design, inclusive of information and graphic
design, is the most immediate place for locating the tactic of tracing
within established design fields. Popular authors such as Tufte and
Wurman have highlighted the pervasiveness of communication
21 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems,
design in contemporary society; and scholars such as Buchanan,
131.
22 Ibid., 131.
Kauffer, and Tyler have examined the rhetorical strategies and uses

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 of communication design.23 The tactic of tracing builds upon these
discussions and activities, adapting them toward the construction of
publics and, in the process, opening them to new contexts and effects.
More specifically, the tactic of tracing is characterized by the use of
designerly forms to creatively express the histories, discourses, and
techniques that constitute an issue; in ways that foster knowledge
through engagement. Increasingly, these forms reach beyond the
common artifacts of communication design. In this way, tracing both
connects with and extends contemporary design, particularly the
areas of participatory and service-oriented practices that embrace
forms of engagement and exchange beyond the traditional object.
The project Zapped by the collective Preemptive Media is
a striking example of the tactic of projection. In part, it is striking
because it exemplifies the ways design tactics are being used
effectively, even furthered, outside of what we might commonly
think of as a design project, thus reinforcing the notion of a tactic as
an adjustment to, appropriation, or manipulation of design products
and processes. As a collective, Preemptive Media is more aligned
with art than design. However, the work of Preemptive Media
Figure 4 (top) demonstrates the blurring of contemporary practices between art
Workbook packet from the Zapped! project.
and design, particularly in the context of socially-engaged work. This
Photo courtesy of Preemptive Media.
blurring results in a productive confusion between art and design in
Figure 5 (bottom) that it makes it easier to exchange forms, methods, and effects. Such
Documentation of Zapped! workshop. Photo exchanges are particularly fruitful to design, because arts practices
courtesy of Preemptive Media. and discourse have made much more significant inroads into the
issues and sites of the public over the past several decades than has
been witnessed within design.
23 See Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence Zapped is a project to raise awareness concerning Radio
(Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006); Frequency Identification (RFID), an emerging technology that
Richard Saul Wurman, Information
allows objects and people to be tracked by means of low-cost digital
Anxiety 2 (Indianapolis, IN: Que
“tags.” RFID has been, and continues to be, a contested technology;
Publishing, 2000); Richard Buchanan,
“Design and the New Rhetoric: perhaps useful for the tracking of palettes through the industrial
Productive Arts in the Philosophy of distribution system, but problematic when applied to the tracking
Culture” in Philosophy and Rhetoric of school children as was proposed in California in 2004.24According
34:3 (2001); David Kaufer and Brian to Preemptive Media, the goal of Zapped is to enable others “to learn
Butler, Rhetoric and the Arts of Design
about and respond to”25 RFID. To these ends, the project is comprised
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996);
and Anne Tyler, “Shaping Belief: The Role
of multiple artifacts and formats including a keychain RFID detector,
of Audience in Visual Communication,” a workbook, an informational video, and a workshop that integrates
Design Issues 9:4 (1992). these artifacts as well as providing an overview presentation on the
24 In 2004, a California school proposed history and current use of RFID, and an opportunity for hands-on
using RFID to track students. For a
engineering activities (Figures 4 and 5).
general overview, see Kim Zetter, “School
Each of these artifacts and formats presents information
RFID Plan Gets an F” in WIRED [Website]
February 10, 2005, available online about RFID, often through complementary means. For example,
at: www.wired.com/politics/security/ through both the keychain RFID reader and the workbook, the basic
news/2005/02/66554, referenced on operating requirements for RFID are explained and diagrammed.
December 13, 2007. The workbook includes an illustrated timeline outlining the
25 See the Zapped project Website at:
development and use of RFID, a brief taxonomy of relevant terms,
www.zapped-it.net/, last referenced on
November 28, 2007.
and a simple game in which participants try to identify which

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 Figure 6
RFID Fob from the Zapped! project. Photo
courtesy of Preemptive Media.

common household products are embedded with RFID. Through and

across these artifacts, the applications of RFID in national security
agendas, industrial operations, and consumer products are detailed,
highlighting how they overlap and influence each other. Each artifact
can be considered a separate trace, produced by Preemptive Media
through research and production, that reveals and records the
distinctive networks of influence that give RFID its known form.
Each artifact is a separate “made-mark,” capturing and expressing
the dynamic multifaceted existence of RFID as a technology and
idea, and perhaps most important, capturing and expressing RFID
as an issue.
The workshop format employed by Preemptive Media
is particularly significant because it extends the revealing and
recording of the trace into a novel format. The workshops utilize
the artifacts to direct participants in an event that allows them to
participate in the process of tracing through hands-on activities. For
example, the keychain RFID detector is made by a simple modifi-
cation of an existing key “fob” which participants in the workshop
make themselves (Figure 6). Through the workshop, Zapped produces
a unique moment of engagement with RFID as an issue, bringing
together, but also extending the artifacts and processes of tracing
into an event.
The Zapped project is exemplary of the tactic of tracing because
of its use of a span of designerly forms to detail and communicate
the expansive and interrelated histories, discourses, and techniques
that structure RFID. On a simple level, these forms are designerly in
that they draw from design artifacts such as information graphics
and engineering prototypes. But in a more nuanced fashion, we
can consider them designerly because they make an issue known
by making it experientially accessible. The workbooks, videos, and
prototypes allow us to read, see, touch, interact with, and even

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 manipulate RFID. The network(s) of materials, actions, concepts, and
values that shape and frame the issue are not intellectualized and
distanced: they are made tangible and at hand. The fact that Zapped
may not be a traditional design project does not negate or lessen
the ability or value of examining the project through the frame of a
design tactic. The design tactic of tracing is not defined by context,
but by method and intent; by the crafted transcription of complex
information into comprehensible forms that appeal to our senses.
These forms designed and developed by Preemptive Media attempt
to make known a complex subject matter, in this case RFID, in such
a way that it can become an issue; that is, in such a way that “the
immense and consolidated unions”26 that simultaneously muddle
and define RFID are made perceptible and understandable.

The Temporal Stance and Discovery: Relational Grounds

of Projection and Tracing
In addition to describing projection and tracing as tactics distinct
from one another, it also is worthwhile to probe and discuss them in
relation to one another. Understanding their relations better enables
comparative descriptions of the tactics and projects, expanding the
grounds for future scholarly criticism and assessment. There are two
immediately identifiable relational grounds shared by projection and
tracing: the temporal stance and discovery.
The Temporal Stance
The tactics of projection and tracing can be understood and
described with regard to the temporal stance of each; that is, the
way they orient towards the past or future. Projections begin in the
present and then look to the future, making it visible. In contrast,
tracings begin in the past and then bring that past to be experientially
known in the present. These differing orientations reflect Dewey’s
dual concerns with “the origins of an issue” 27 and its “indirect
consequences.”28 Such differing temporal orientations provide a clear
basis for comparative descriptions. But in describing and critiquing
these tactics, it also is important to understand that the temporal
stance is not a static pose. Rather, it is an active dialectic referencing
the past or future in order to attend to issues in the present.
Tactics reference the past or future because such reference
provides the contextualization to current conditions necessary
to identify and cast these conditions as issues. A condition is an
issue in part because of its historical obfuscation or indeterminate
future effect. So, to depict the present alone would be insufficient.
Likewise, while projection and tracing respectively glance forward
and back, it also would be a mistake to characterize them as practices
of forecasting or history. Both are rooted in the now. The objective
of a contribution to the construction of publics is to aide in making
26 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, something occur in the present, not to provide the props for a future
126.
happening, or simply illuminate the past. Because issues are situated,
27 Ibid., 131.
28 Ibid.
the framing and presentation of an issue is reflexive of the current

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 conditions. Projections are an image of the future given what we
know today, and tracings make the past relevant to a contemporary
context. Thus, projections and tracings require a balance and flow
between the past, present, and future to maintain the temporal
stance. Descriptions and critiques of projects that employ these
tactics should examine this balance and this flow as grounds for
evaluation and judgment.
Discovery
Tactics also share the activity of discovery as the basis for
contributing to the construction of publics. Issues are rarely given,
and if they are given, tend to be so in the broadest of terms, still
requiring research and elucidation to make them apparent and
known. Through the process of discovery, issues are recognized
and explored, and their factors and effects are articulated. Although
Dewey does not address discovery in The Public and Its Problems,
we can look to another work, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry,29 to frame
discovery in a Deweyan perspective. Discovery occurs through
the process of inquiry, which Dewey defines as “the controlled
or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation in its
constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements
of the original situation into a unified whole.”30 The indeter-
minate situation is the conditions of the issue, in their “expanded,
multiplied, intensified, and complicated”31 form. Discovery is thus
characterized by controlled and directed research, analysis, reflection,
and synthesis, that produces a whole that is able to be made apparent
and known.
The specific procedures of discovery are influenced and
differentiated by the temporal stance and the audience, providing yet
further grounds for comparative descriptions. Both projection and
tracing begin with an investigation of the current state of knowledge,
activities, and technologies in a given field or subject. But projection
also requires investigation into how that knowledge, activities, and
technologies change and progress over time, so that plausible antici-
pations of future effects might be made. For example, the projections
created by Dunne, Raby, and Singh in Is This Your Future? required an
understanding of the current state of research in the area of biotech-
nology, specifically bioenergy production and use. Furthermore, it
required an understanding of the patterns and trajectories of product
development within biotechnology. Tracing, in contrast, requires
investigation into how a current state of affairs came into being and
operates, in order to produce a thorough contemporary mapping
of an issue. One way this is achieved is by cataloguing the varied
discursive, material, and cultural factors that give shape to an issue.
29 John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry The tracings within Zapped exemplify this, since they capture and
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, reflect the interplay of security, industrial, consumer, and engineering
1938). forces present in RFID.
30 Ibid., 104—105.
Of course, the audience also plays a fundamental role in
31 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems,
126.
the process of discovery towards designerly contributions to the

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 construction of publics. Given that tactics are designerly means for
the identification and articulation of issues; such that they might be
known enough to enable a public to form around them; a central
concern is to discover what forms of expression are most appropriate
and compelling for the those people and institutions the tactic is
intended to communicate with. This process is familiar to design, and
there is a wealth of scholarship to address the endeavor, particularly
in the research literature concerning human-centered communication
design.32 But the lessons available from art also should be brought
to bear on the topic of discovery. Particularly since the mid-1970s,
artists have developed innovative ways of communicating and
engaging with the public. Documentation and discussion of these
activities can found in the scholarship concerning public art, as well
as the recent discussions of relation and dialogical aesthetics33 The
role of art in discovering expressive forms that might bring a public
into being was not lost on Dewey for, as he stated, “Artists have
always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward
happening itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion,
perception, and appreciation.”34
Within design, discovery is certainly not limited to the
construction of publics. Discovery appears under many guises in
design practice, but is most often cast as a component of “problem
definition,” in which the designer expresses to a client what the
designer has determined is the most pressing matter to be solved
or remedied through design. While there are similarities between
simple notions of problem definition and discovery, it is important
to disambiguate them as activities. Within the context of the
construction of publics, the issue—that thing which is discovered—
is not necessarily presented in a manner that asks for a solution
or remedy by design. Its discovery does not de facto imply that
design be a component of addressing the issue. In contrast, problem
definition often is a self-serving, self-perpetuating activity to solidify
32 For example, see Jodi Forlizzi and Cherrie the current position and extend the reach of professional design
Lebbon, “From Formalism to Social practice. Problem definition, as commonly conceived, implies the
Significance in Communication Design,” identification of a matter that can and should be addressed by design.
Design Issues 18:4 (Autumn 2002).
However, within the context of the construction of publics, the role
33 For recent overviews of public art, see W.
J. T. Mitchell, Art and the Public Sphere
of design may stop at the discovery and articulation of the issue—
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, identifying and expressing the issue does not necessarily perpetuate
1992) and Tom Finkelpearl, Dialogues in the role of design and the designer. For example, the exhibit Is
Public Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, This Your Future? does not suggest that design be employed to do
2001). For a discussion of relational
anything to thwart or enable the possible future states depicted. It is
and dialogic aesthetics, see Nicolas
sufficient and complete for the projections simply to be proffered.
Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Paris:
Les Presse Du Reel, 1998) and Grant
Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community Establishing the Grounds for Criticism and Assessment
and Communication in Modern Art The tactics of projection and tracing name and outline how
(Berkeley, CA: University of California designerly means might be applied in the identification and articu-
Press, 2004).
lation of issues, such that those issues might be known enough to
34 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems,
184.
enable a public to form around them. But more than identifying and

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 describing such projects, a goal of this essay it to provide the grounds
for criticism and assessment in order to support and foster scholarly
inquiry. This criticism and assessment begins within design studies
with an investigation of the tactics and those features that make them
designerly, but also extends to include other disciplines that might
comment on the efficacy of design in the political realm.
Projects first can be examined against the given definition
of each tactic as a start for criticism. For example, for the tactic of
projection, relevant questions to begin a critique would be: “How
and how well are the aesthetic characteristics of possible future
conditions portrayed?” and “Do the projections evidence an intimate
understanding of how complex ideas are transformed into products,
services, and artifacts?” Given the tactic of tracing, corollary
questions would be: “How and how well are designerly forms
employed to make known the network of histories, discourses(s),
and techniques that shape and frame an issue over time?” and
“Were structures, arguments, and assumptions of a given issue
newly revealed and made more accessible?” Beyond review and
appraisal of individual projects, answering the question of “How”
would reveal shared rhetorical devices and themes employed toward
the construction of publics, which could be further critiqued and
assessed across projects and subject matter.
Projects also can be critiqued and assessed by closely
examining how the process of discovery, in terms of both the content
and the mode of expression, is reflected in the work. For example,
as previously noted, the projections in Is This Your Future? required
an understanding of the current state of research in bioenergy
production and use. One course of assessment would be to ask if
the projections evidenced this understanding, that is, if the reference
to the current state research in bioenergy production and use could
be located within the projections. In the case of Is This Your Future?
the answer is yes. The projection “Meat-Eating Products” directly
references recent research into the use of animal matter as a power
source for robots.35 Another course of assessment would be to ask
if the form of expression was appropriate to the audience. Again,
in the case of Is This Your Future? the answer is yes. Though adults
35 For example, the Ecobot project at
may find the exhibition unduly grotesque, numerous researchers in
the University of Bristol Intelligent childhood education have argued that such approaches are wholly
Autonomous Systems Laboratory has appropriate and valuable to support learning among youth, who
developed a robot that is powered by were in fact the audience.36 While such examinations of Is This Your
dead flies, and another that is design to
Future? are plainly too abrupt as examples, they suggest how such
capture and subsist on slugs. For an over-
critique and assessment of the content and form of expression in the
view, see the Ecobot project Website at:
www.ias.uwe.ac.uk/Robots/slugbot.htm, context of discovery might progress.
last referenced on December 11, 2007. Integrating and collaborating with other fields and
36 For a popular overview of this position, perspectives would broaden and bolster the inquiry, particularly
see Gerald Jone, Killing Monsters: Why towards genuinely assessing the effect of design. Assessing the
Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes,
effect of design requires asking the challenging question: “Does
and Make-Believe Violence (New York:
Basic Books, 2003).
the contribution of design to the construction of publics really

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 matter?” and, if so, “When?” and “How?” To address these questions
requires expertise outside of what is commonly found in design
studies. But numerous fields with existing ties to design, such as
the learning sciences, science and technology studies, and public
policy, are well-equipped theoretically and methodologically to take
up these questions. Assessing the effect of design tactics is partic-
ularly important in determining what “works” and what counts
as “working” (i.e., how do we know that a specific intervention
or engagement has had an effect, or what effect it has had). For
example, without summative assessment, we cannot comment on
the actual effect of the projects Is This You Future” or Zapped we can
only offer a reflective critique. Beyond evaluating, and potentially
improving, the efficacy of design tactics, assessment is valuable
because it informs broad arguments in design studies. Specifically,
through assessment, claims made concerning the effects of design
are made accountable; enabling broader arguments to be made, or
refuted, regarding the value and place of design in increasing societal
awareness, and motivating and enabling political action.

Conclusion
This article served to begin an inquiry into design and the construc-
tion of publics by describing the Deweyan public, identifying and
describing two design tactics, and establishing initial grounds for
scholarly critique and assessment. As both a subject of scholarly
concern and practical activity, the construction of publics is increas-
ingly pertinent to contemporary design studies, warranting ongoing
inquiry. As has been illustrated above, a Deweyan notion of the
construction of publics serves well as a framing concept to support
the description and analysis of a diversity of designerly activities and
forms. Through a discussion of diverse tactics and common grounds,
we can begin to ask, and answer, the question of how the processes
and products of design might serve in discovering and articulating
the issues that spur a public into being.
There are several issues and limitations within this essay that
should be acknowledged now, with the hope of prompting future
research. One limitation is the number and kinds of projects chosen
for examples. Admittedly, these projects are highly aestheticized
and contained. The choice of these projects was not arbitrary, but
calculated to ease into the inquiry. Grounding the discussion in
relatively familiar design objects that were visually strong and
conceptually provocative provides an accessible and compelling
beginning. In addition, the scale of these projects illustrate that
contribution to the construction of publics need not be a mammoth
endeavor. Small interventions and engagements are possible and
productive, and worthy of scholarly attention. Nonetheless, to
develop a more robust understanding of design and the construction
of public projects it is necessary to examine projects that are less
aestheticized and are expansive in terms of time, breadth of audience,

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 and range of contexts. A pertinent example is the “Design of the
Times” program directed by John Thackara that seeks to use design
as a means to spark discussion and action concerning alternate
relationships with the environment on a regional scale.37
Ethics is another issue requiring attention. The explicit
and intentional use of design processes and products towards the
construction of publics is certain to raise concerns. Visions of visually
sophisticated and experientially sculpted fascist states, propaganda,
and misinformation come to mind. By the contributions of design,
will publics inherit problematic qualities of being “engineered” or
“commodities”? Such concerns are legitimate and substantial. The
subject of design ethics should go hand-in-hand with the construction
of publics, and have a significant place in future discourse.
Finally, there is the question of action: is facilitating action
part of the subject and activity of the construction of publics?
Certainly, providing the means for taking action is an important
objective of design, and there are many examples of projects in
which enabling social or political action is the central purpose. But
perhaps the facilitation of direct action should be considered as a
separate endeavor, in both theory and practice, from the construction
of publics. Bringing to awareness (i.e., making apparent and known),
is a significant objective and task itself, deserving thorough consid-
eration. This is not to shirk responsibility or abandon opportunity
for taking action, but rather to give the construction of publics as a
framing concept and activity the acute attention necessary to develop
thorough research and scholarship.

37 For more information on Design of

the Times, see the project website at:
www.dott07.com/, last referenced on
December 11, 2007.

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