I was invited to an interesting session at the MediaCampus last night as part of #francedesignweek around the topic of #nonhumanstakeholders, and how #posthumancentereddesign could create more inclusive, sustainable and desirable futures?

Thanks to Catherine Morel for inviting me along and to Marie-Julie Catoir-Brisson and Nil GULARI for their presentation and interactive ideas and content.

I particularly enjoyed the first brainstorming session around forming dialogues with non-human stakeholders.

We had to think about how we would talk to non-humans and in what voice – for example, dogs in the office about the organisation, or with plants about climate change and to our telephones regarding social injustices. What was interesting was that the non-human stakeholders also had to respond. They had to have a voice. I think this is an interesting discourse for designers to enter into to see both sides of the story.

This session was inspired by the work of Joseph Beuys who often worked alongside non-human creatures, like his 3 x 8 hour days locked in a room with a coyote whilst covered in felt in his work entitled I like America and America Likes me and sometimes with dead animals in his interactive artwork called How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare.

During the session, I was thinking about Covid and how this non-human generated virus (not sure that we still know the true origin of it either…) made us change just about everything in our lives… it was pretty powerful. It changed our view of technology, nature, social systems, the way we want to live etc… I then came across this article this morning about this topic. Was it the non-humans who were more smart than us and saw something we did not see ourselves?

“For the anthropologist Philippe Descola, the Covid-19 pandemic may be the opportunity to re-examine Western societies’ relations with nature and develop new social models.”

All-in-all, interesting food for thought with a goal of manifesting these ideas to reveal different scenarios, conceptual ideas, ways of being, living, working with the non-human world in different situations in the future. We need to liberate our ideas around them – think differently and foresee the future and how we can work on new scenarios for humans and non-humans to exist together in more harmonious and equitable situations. #designfiction is one way that designers do it, but there are many other tools that can be used.