To create an engaged practice of making responsible design is thus our main task.
This means to form a special knowledge or craftsmanship to engage in the devel-
opment of skills. The hope is for a hacktivist orchestration of social craftsmanship
that leads to new skills and action spaces. This is a social practice on many levels;
reverse engineering and understanding systems, developing craftsmanship, show-
ing examples that attract participation, creating manuals that lead the way, organ-
izing workshops that mobilize energy in the right direction, negotiating continua-
tions, and finally plugging the projects back into the system. On every level we will
collectively explore new action spaces for fashion.
I would suggest the practice of an engaged hacktivist designer could be something
like this:
• Reawakening a spirit: Inspiring and boosting the thirst for exploration and emer-
gence, expanding action spaces through simple examples, workshops and manuals to
form new forms of attention and awareness.• Giving voice to the silent: Creating a language of practice and also encouraging
experiments in visual expression. To develop a critical usage of existing media chan-
nels as well as creating new ones.• Going through informal channels: Bypass gatekeepers; find your own, low-level
paths of action.• Building self-reliance: Teaching simple modular methods or subsystems that can
easily be expanded into other interventions and creations, developing a trust and
courage in ones skills.