The Life and Death of Critical and Speculative Design: Post-Truth, Post-Capital and Post-Disciplinarity in Perilous Times

This lecture will be structured around four deaths; each significant in my life, each playing a role in shifting my understanding of life, death and design. The lecture aims to problematise the idea of ‘critical design’ as a school of thinking, a method or a style of design. I will try to grapple with the relationship between critical thought, theory and material practice in the networked age. Whilst doing this I will try to unravel how nomenclature and critique can undermine local cultures and how ‘care’ can provide a framework to make sense of a new direction in design education. The talk will reflect on design in perilous times through ideas, projects and practices that have emerged from Goldsmiths over the last 15 years. I aim to build a case for a new expanded, post-disciplinary practice.