Breakdown, obsolescence and reuse: HCI and the art of repair

This paper describes an integrated program of theoretical, ethnographic, and building work meant to explore post-humanist alternatives to questions around HCI creativity and design. We review recent theories in the humanities, social sciences, and HCI that argue for different ways of framing the relationship between human agents and the object world around them. We then describe a program of ethnographic work with artists who feature found and broken technologies as central methods and topics of work. Finally, we describe an installation and self-study project of our own, ‘Scale,’ that extends these lines of analysis through collaborative acts of building with broken and discarded technologies. We argue that such integrated programs of work offer one useful model for leveraging the theoretical, ethnographic and material dimensions of HCI work; and that the distinct ‘propensities’ of found and broken objects can challenge and extend HCI notions of creativity and design itself