Unboxing the Toolkit - Toolshed

Perhaps our toolkits can offer new ethical and pedagogical frames, reshaping the contexts for tool use – and informing the worlds we build with them.

"New Survivalism" by Parsons & Charlesworth, 2014. (Commissioned for the Istanbul Design Biennial). Essay Unboxing the Toolkit Shannon Mattern July 9, 2021 What do flower gardens, chests of drawers, chocolate cakes, and global development projects have in common? They all might find their origin in a toolkit! Given the proliferation of kits across industry sectors and everyday experiences, we’d do well to consider what the toolkit does, who it serves and how, and what it says about us. In the 15 th century, “kit” denoted a wooden vessel used to hold water, milk, butter, fi

related reading

• Tools for thought: science, design, art, craftsmanship? | Andy Matuschakandymatuschak.org
• Value Beyond Instrumentalization — Letters to a Young Technologistletterstoayoungtechnologist.com
• Tool-makers usually lack connection to a serious context of usenotes.andymatuschak.org
• Ryo Lu on X: "Getting to great design isn’t about narrowing your focus onto one tiny problem or building yet another “purpose‑built” tool. It’s about learning to see through the surface and recognize the truths underneath everything we do – the same patterns, the same flows, the same ideas" / Xx.com
• Exorcising us of the Primer | Andy Matuschakandymatuschak.org
• Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong? | MIT Technology Reviewtechnologyreview.com
• Issue 002 / Internet Playgroundswoolgather.sh
• The Cabinet of Curiosities: Between Curatorial and Ethnographic Practiceentanglementsjournal.wordpress.com
• On Speculative Design | Benjamin H. Bratton - DIS MagazineDIS Magazinedismagazine.com
• Speculative Everything : Design, Fiction, and Social Dreamingreadings.design
• Projects — Christoph Locher · Interaction Designerchristophlabacher.com
• The Farmer & Farmer Review . Mastery and Mimicry . The Heart of the Builderfarmerandfarmer.org