Abstract
In this pictorial, we discuss the Cabinet of Bureaucratic Wonders (CBW), a collection and display of artifacts found in public sector facilities. The CBW invited participants to productive encounters with bureaucratic artifacts, such as coat hangers, stamps, and coffee carafes. Our goal was to investigate the agentic effects of office objects—non-human public agents—in steering conduct in institutions. At once an institution, an archive, and an intervention, the CBW appropriates formats of cabinets and employs design anthropology and participatory design methods to engage with public servants in the local and federal governments in Brazil and the USA. The CBW’s collection is divided into color-coded folders according to the primary wonders or powers identified across the objects. By drawing attention to apparently disenchanted infrastructures of bureaucracy, we seek to contribute practical and creative modes of inquiry to notice and investigate sociomaterial infrastructures and systems of relationalities within political institutions.
Keywords
Non-human public agents; Sociomaterial infrastructures; Productive encounters; Wonders
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.763
Citation
Brandalise, I., Vaqueiro, L.,and Lee, J.P.(2025) Making the Cabinet of Bureaucratic Wonders: productive encounters with non-human public agents, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.763
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 1 - More Than Human-centered Design
Making the Cabinet of Bureaucratic Wonders: productive encounters with non-human public agents
In this pictorial, we discuss the Cabinet of Bureaucratic Wonders (CBW), a collection and display of artifacts found in public sector facilities. The CBW invited participants to productive encounters with bureaucratic artifacts, such as coat hangers, stamps, and coffee carafes. Our goal was to investigate the agentic effects of office objects—non-human public agents—in steering conduct in institutions. At once an institution, an archive, and an intervention, the CBW appropriates formats of cabinets and employs design anthropology and participatory design methods to engage with public servants in the local and federal governments in Brazil and the USA. The CBW’s collection is divided into color-coded folders according to the primary wonders or powers identified across the objects. By drawing attention to apparently disenchanted infrastructures of bureaucracy, we seek to contribute practical and creative modes of inquiry to notice and investigate sociomaterial infrastructures and systems of relationalities within political institutions.