Pluriverse Skins DIY Bio-Production. For a Post-Anthropocentric Coexistence

Abstract

By developing practice-based research, through critical and speculative design methodologies, we propose a definition of “skin” not as a univocal boundary of subjective bodies (animal, plants, or other creatures), but as a pluriverse membrane of connection across and between species. Deeply inspired by holistic and posthuman philosophical approaches (such as Braidotti, Pannikar, Escobar, Coccia), the ongoing research feeds such a definition of “pluriverse skins” by experiments on bio-media and the relative speculative scenarios. We present three aspects of the study: a) preliminary reflection about how design is affected and transformed by ecological notions; b) design experiments in bio-media to create skins that can unfold as the carrier of new forms of ecological awareness; c) discussion about the aesthetic of bioskins and implication for the notion of a new post-anthropocentrism at large. Pluriverse Skins offers an alternative look into biomaterials, by the means of practical and speculative investigation: in the paper we discuss how such an approach could contribute to reshaping the meaning of bio production, within the emerging post-anthropocentric paradigm.