Devices of Articulation: Who Ever Said They Have to Be Smart?

In this article, I argue to expand the application of the concept “devices of articulation”—a term signifying those artifacts that are purposefully created to articulate public issues: controversial phenomena that are too important not to be considered by designers but are not necessarily solvable by political or scientific means. Whereas problems might be fixed, issues can only be temporarily stabilized. I, therefore, investigate how two design projects—Smogware and the Rain Project—forge new relations, meanings, and consequences among elements that are typically understood to be unrelated, to support public engagement with the issue of environmental pollution.