Un-Crafting: De-Constructive Engagements with Interactive Artifacts

Crafting interactive artifacts is typically associated with synthesizing, making, constructing, putting things together. In this paper, we discuss how these activities can be contrasted with de-synthesizing activities that revolve around decomposition, dissection, and taking things apart. Based on framings that emphasize how related practices are valuable in engineering processes, we aim to unlock the potential of de-constructive engagements with interactive technologies as a material driven (design) practice. We propose un-crafting as a framework of four modes of taking interactive artifacts apart (i.e., un-crafting for material exposition, material inspiration, material inquiry, and material exploration) aiming to pinpoint de-constructive episodes inherent to design processes, as well as to encourage the refinement of respective techniques and methods.