Expanding the Galaxy. Designing More-than-Human Futures

Abstract

When we talk about design, we might define it as anticipating, imagining, defining the future, yet it might also be an act of transforming, or considering the possibility of various orders of transformation. This process can be described, borrowing Buckminster Fuller’s point of view, as a preestablished sequence of activities/events characterized by a preliminary phase of exploration and research. Leroi-Gourhan describes it as a process of hominization coupled with the power of technical evolution, which generates what we call the Anthropocene. Design theory and the philosophy of technology have long reflected on the idea of modernity as a transforming force that changes the face of the world. The birth of a critical ecological movement and the advent of the global transformation of post-industrial society, encourage the use of design as a generator of social value. As the posthuman perspective (Braidotti, 2013) embraces actor-network theory, new feminist materialism and object-oriented ontology, design is also incorporating a consideration of animals, machines, and other things in the planetary transformations. We have never, in recent years, witnessed such a flourishing of theoretical, cultural, and experimental reflections. A new design galaxy can be mapped.