Description
This book is about DIY culture and how it meets participatory, inclusive and community-based forms of creative practice. Critical kits are toolboxes, resources, instructions for how to make great, or simply interesting, things happen with technology. But they also ask that we question why, and to be aware of the network of effects technologies participate in. Critical Kits includes a selection of case studies from artists and makers working in the kit form, a series of essays on the theory, historical and contemporary contexts for kit making and distribution, and an in depth look Gym Jams, a kit-based project which took place in a public leisure centre. It was written by Re-Dock, Nathan Jones and artists from across the north of England working creatively with technology and people. It is designed to be useful for artists, makers, students of art-tech work, and anyone interested in current participatory and technology practices.