Critical Interfaces

Conclusion

This article has argued for an expansion of the domain of "critical making" to include a range of software-based practices including the development and use of authoring tools, archives, and data-driven electronic publications. Consistent with conventional practices of critical making, which draw attention to the systems, materials, and technologies that enable emerging modes of scholarship, I have attempted to demonstrate some of the resonances between development of these digital platforms and the underlying motivations of critical making. Each of the case studies cited here – the electronic journal Vectors, the public media archive Critical Commons, and the electronic authoring platform Scalar – engage issues of both making and criticality from varying but related angles. My goal has not been to undermine what I take to be a beneficial and continuing dialogue surrounding critical making in the humanities but to suggest ways that this conversation might productively extend to include the activities outlined above.

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