Murray, M., Barry, M., Halperin, B. A., O’Keefe, H., Duval, J., Vigil-Hayes, M., … & Robinson, S. (2026, June). Designing for Dissensus: Arts-Based Methods for Generative Friction in Design. In Companion Publication of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 27-31). https://doi.org/10.1145/3802974.3808004
Abstract: We need more critical collaborative design practices in a world fraught with meta-crisis, both exacerbated and alleviated by design and technology. This one-day workshop explores how arts-based methods can support this criticality through challenging harmful consensus that contribute to meta-crisis and encouraging a generative conflict within community-based collaborative design. Central to this is the configuring of an equitable positionality that recognises difference. We look towards Freirean praxis, centering making and reflection, to challenge assumptions inherent in computing and collaboration that contribute to social injustices. We foreground concepts from arts-based participation which disrupt social norms and reveal hidden experiences through generative friction. Workshop participants will gain insights on how positionalities are configured and negotiated, ideas for how conflict and “equality in difference” might be evoked in collaborative practices and how making activities can interrogate harmful norms, advance diverse standpoints, build mutual understanding and support more open and critical participatory processes.
