The Dewey Organ: making problems and publics

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The proposed research is a 'co-design' experiment to prototype ways of making problems and publics. The research directly addresses issues central to the funding call and is critical to practice-based researchers, designers and policymakers, namely: what counts as a social 'problem' and what publics do problems bring into being? Although these disciplines are problem-making practices, it is not easy to generate the problem from which research emerges. Problems and publics are not given or waiting to be found. They also do not come in convenient pairs. They are made. It is a problem to make problems. The proposed research explicitly explores these issues materially, in practice, in place and with an initial pilot public. The proposal approaches these core concerns by way of two interrelated practice-based research procedures: first,the research aims to construct a problem-making 'machine' with which to render issues tangible, material and debatable in new ways, and second, the research will place the machine in a context where members of publics can interact with, problematize and customize problems and in doing so make their publics known or indicate new publics that arise around new issues..The machine we aim to build takes its name - 'The Dewey Organ' - from John Dewey's (1927) 'The Public and its Problems' which critically examines civic participation and the relationships between citizens and experts. The Organ is a device for making sound, harmony and dissonance, and of bringing people together. It also speaks of the material body politic, an anatomy of publics.The research proposal is a collaborative experiment in critical problem and public making. It directly builds on the research team's interdisciplinary expertise in sociology and design (Goldsmiths), and design-led research (DJCAD Dundee) as well as the practitioner expertise of its non-academic partner, Civic Workshop, who critically engage with local socio-political issues.