The installation transports you to a London flat, perhaps in the year 2050 or so—when my son might be around our age. At first glance, you’re in a seemingly comfortable living space designed for a world of automated living, global trade and material abundance. Then on closer inspection, you realise the apartment has been adapted to a future it was never meant to inhabit. Discarded newspapers and a radio show reflect the tensions of this new world; recipes in the kitchen reveal the change in food production, storage, and consumption. Experimental food production occupies space once given to relaxation—transforming the apartment into a space for growing and producing food. Towering silver stacks of mushrooms, cabbages and chili plants flourish in an optimally lit indoor environment.
As part of the installation, Jon built a food computer from scratch—something he hadn’t done before. We used the soilfree, nutrient-enriched water vapour technique of fogponics to grow things quickly. We wanted to build them in the cheapest way possible: from salvaged, abandoned and repurposed materials. Turning today’s waste into tomorrow’s dinner.
This inspired me to think of a bigger picture, and instead of the established “user-centred design” narrative so loved by technology companies and design schools alike, I considered a “more-than-human” centred approach. Where humans beings are not at the centre of the universe and the centre of everything. Where we consider ourselves as deeply entangled in relationships with other species and non-human entities.
Our profession, and those we serve after a long time, finally have come around to the idea of human-centred design, which is important for many reasons, especially when designing for diverse users and communities. But, in a broader context, as multi species anthropologist Anne Galloway writes: “what if we deny that human beings are exceptional? What if we stop speaking and listening only to ourselves?”
Galloway continues, “Complementary ways of thinking, doing, and making emphasise the practice of care and imagination and challenge us to work with, not against, vulnerability, humility and interdependence.” Interdependence is a powerful concept for me: different participants—human and non-human—are emotionally, economically, ecologically or morally interdependent on each other. And this reliance is acknowledged. I think this perspective is something that would be very meaningful for many of us to consider—whether we’re interaction, service, or UX designers, entrepreneurs, researchers or people who put things out in the world for others “to use”.
