An Archive of Tensions in MtHD

Our work on tensions in more-than-human design is now out in Interactions Magazine. It grew out of a workshop at DIS – and many conversations about what it actually means to design beyond the human.

If you’re working in more-than-human design, you’ve likely encountered tensions like these:

We try to decenter the human – and find it quietly reappearing.
We design for care – and find traces of control.
We try to speak for nonhumans – and hear our own voices amplified.
We try to include nonhumans – and risk instrumentalizing them.

Instead of resolving these tensions, we started to collect them. The result is an evolving archive of tensions. Have a look!

We’re currently expanding this work into a longer journal article and are curious: What tensions do you encounter when designing beyond the human?

Contribute to the archive!

Figure by Daisy You

Judith Dörrenbächer