ABSTRACT

Peter was one of the teachers who attended an electronic-textile, or e-textile, workshop as part of a summer professional development program in a midAtlantic town. In this vignette, what do we perceive as bringing about Peter’s design decisions? Most conventional views of design would see Peter acting on and transforming the materials: Peter created the fireworks display with LEDs and the sound effects using a buzzer. On closer examination, the materials also appear to have agency, priming Peter’s design choices. For example, the color of the materials seemed to prompt Peter’s patriotic emotions, to work on his imagination, and to influence his actions toward a coherent design of a patriotic fireworks display. Imagine if these materials were not available and instead were replaced by glittering neon buttons or other materials not conducive to a patriotic theme. How then would Peter’s artifact have been conditioned, and what form would the artifact have taken?