Abstract
Generative AI (GenAI) has sparked intense media debate, yet design research has often echoed these narratives rather than examining how GenAI reshapes everyday design practices. This paper presents a year-long auto-ethnographic study involving 34 games and apps created through vibe coding, a GenAI-native approach that uses natural-language prompts to generate code. The study reveals distinct qualities that unsettle design processes: playful intervention, creative forgetting, spectral echoes, inventive excess, and fragile limits. Two key insights emerge: designing with GenAI requires deliberate engagement with cultural archetypes and treating AI as an unruly collaborator. Drawing on John Oswald’s 1985 concept of ‘plunderphonics’, the paper situates GenAI within a lineage of experimental art and design tactics. The paper offers auto-ethnographic insights into how GenAI reshapes design practice and introduces ‘Plundergeist’ as a critical and playful ethos for designing with GenAI through cultural plundering and unruly collaboration.
Keywords
Generative AI, Vibe Coding, Auto-ethnography, Plundergeist
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.261
Citation
Nold, C. (2026) Plundergeist: Exploring generative AI through vibe coding as reflective design practice, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.261
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Plundergeist: Exploring generative AI through vibe coding as reflective design practice
Generative AI (GenAI) has sparked intense media debate, yet design research has often echoed these narratives rather than examining how GenAI reshapes everyday design practices. This paper presents a year-long auto-ethnographic study involving 34 games and apps created through vibe coding, a GenAI-native approach that uses natural-language prompts to generate code. The study reveals distinct qualities that unsettle design processes: playful intervention, creative forgetting, spectral echoes, inventive excess, and fragile limits. Two key insights emerge: designing with GenAI requires deliberate engagement with cultural archetypes and treating AI as an unruly collaborator. Drawing on John Oswald’s 1985 concept of ‘plunderphonics’, the paper situates GenAI within a lineage of experimental art and design tactics. The paper offers auto-ethnographic insights into how GenAI reshapes design practice and introduces ‘Plundergeist’ as a critical and playful ethos for designing with GenAI through cultural plundering and unruly collaboration.