[NetBehaviour] The Critical Engineering Manifesto

[Critical Engineering]

Dear NetBehaviour,

It is with great pleasure we present:

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      T H E  C R I T I C A L  E N G I N E E R I N G  M A N I F E S T O


The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most 
transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, 
communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study 
and exploit this language, exposing its influence.


The Critical Engineer considers any technology depended upon to be both 
a challenge and a threat. The greater the dependence on a technology the 
greater the need to study and expose its inner workings, regardless of 
ownership or legal provision.


The Critical Engineer raises awareness that with each technological 
advance our techno-political literacy is challenged.


The Critical Engineer deconstructs and incites suspicion of rich user 
experiences.


The Critical Engineer looks beyond the 'awe of implementation' to 
determine methods of influence and their specific effects.


The Critical Engineer recognises that each work of engineering engineers 
its user, proportional to that user's dependency upon it.


The Critical Engineer expands 'machine' to describe interrelationships
encompassing devices, bodies, agents, forces and networks.


The Critical Engineer observes the space between the production and 
consumption of technology. Acting rapidly on changes in this space, the 
Critical Engineer serves to expose moments of imbalance and deception.


The Critical Engineer looks to the history of art, architecture, 
activism, philosophy and invention and finds exemplary works of Critical 
Engineering. Strategies, ideas and agendas from these disciplines will 
be adopted, re-purposed and deployed.


The Critical Engineer notes that written code expands into social and
psychological realms, regulating behaviour between people and the 
machines they interact with. By understanding this, the Critical 
Engineer seeks to reconstruct user-constraints and social action through 
means of digital excavation.


The Critical Engineer considers the exploit to be the most desirable 
form of exposure.


		J. Oliver, G. Savicic, D. Vasiliev
			Berlin, October 2011


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The manifesto is also available here, in the languages of English, 
Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, German, Serbian, French and Russian:

	http://criticalengineering.org

Further translations are being added currently.

Kind regards,

Julian Oliver, Gordan Savicic, Danja Vasiliev

-- 
http://criticalengineering.org