Critical Kits and How We Use Them is a publication exploring how artistic practices use the production and distribution of kits and what the implications of this could be.

This book is about DIY culture and how it meets participatory, inclusive and community-based forms of creative practice. Critical kits are toolboxes, resources, instructions for how to make great, or simply interesting, things happen with technology. But they also ask that we question why, and to be aware of the network of effects technologies participate in. Critical Kits includes a selection of case studies from artists and makers working in the kit form, a series of essays on the theory, historical and contemporary contexts for kit making and distribution, and an in depth look Gym Jams, a kit-based project which took place in a public leisure centre. It is designed to be useful for artists, makers, students of art-tech work, and anyone interested in current participatory and technology practices.

A card game ‘Critical Kits Trumps’ has been produced to accompany the book.

It was produced by Re-Dock, Torque publications and artists from across the North of England.

Digital editions of the book, and card game. Or buy them!

I attended the Critical Kits Symposium 2016, which was organised by Ross Dalziel and Neil Winterburn. Later I designed the book and card game.