Abstract
AI devices are structured by “seamless” and “emotional” design, which conceals many underlying mechanisms and algorithmic rules. By contrast, behavioral objects – through defamiliarization and misbehavior – prompt critical reflection on our relationship with technological artifacts and expose their inner workings. However, most behavioral objects, particularly in art contexts, are designed to ensure predictable outcomes and audience interactions, revealing an underlying desire to tightly control the discourse produced by the work. This paper contends that their critical significance can instead emerge from their material presence through a frictional, more-than-human approach in which dysfunction becomes a source of unpredictable expressivity and cooperation. Drawing on the analysis of two prototypes (Data Airbag and CamIA), the paper shows how their design processes and public interactions reveal that integrating friction and alterity from the earliest stages of creation fosters ongoing processes of co-elaboration between humans and artifacts.
Keywords
behavioral objects, more-than-human design, friction
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1458
Citation
Loubet, C. (2026) Design through co-elaboration: Friction, dysfunction, and more-than-human, 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.2026.1458
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Design through co-elaboration: Friction, dysfunction, and more-than-human
AI devices are structured by “seamless” and “emotional” design, which conceals many underlying mechanisms and algorithmic rules. By contrast, behavioral objects – through defamiliarization and misbehavior – prompt critical reflection on our relationship with technological artifacts and expose their inner workings. However, most behavioral objects, particularly in art contexts, are designed to ensure predictable outcomes and audience interactions, revealing an underlying desire to tightly control the discourse produced by the work. This paper contends that their critical significance can instead emerge from their material presence through a frictional, more-than-human approach in which dysfunction becomes a source of unpredictable expressivity and cooperation. Drawing on the analysis of two prototypes (Data Airbag and CamIA), the paper shows how their design processes and public interactions reveal that integrating friction and alterity from the earliest stages of creation fosters ongoing processes of co-elaboration between humans and artifacts.