Abstract
In an effort to respond to the contemporary environmental crises, Design strives to continuously define and develop more-than-human design practices. In response, this exploratory piece puts in dialogue two “affective anecdotes”: we discuss affective encounters with the ocean and the soil, foregrounding how these experiences have impacted our perspectives on the Design discipline and practice, exploring how, through a reflective dialogue, a relational understanding of these events emerges, while also allowing us to grasp the implicit nature of our more-than-human design practice better. This paper foregrounds the difficulty in expressing affective experiences through words, as well as the value of troubling feelings that can emerge when developing an understanding of more-than-human subjectivities while designing.
Keywords
more-than-human, affect, design, more-than-human design, dialogue
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.49
Citation
Hamilton-Jones, D.,and Schröder, A.(2025) Affect in more-than-human design practice: An anecdote-based exploration through dialogue, in Brandt, E., Markussen, T., Berglund, E., Julier, G., Linde, P. (eds.), Nordes 2025: Relational Design, 6-8 August, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.49
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Exploratory Papers
Included in
Affect in more-than-human design practice: An anecdote-based exploration through dialogue
In an effort to respond to the contemporary environmental crises, Design strives to continuously define and develop more-than-human design practices. In response, this exploratory piece puts in dialogue two “affective anecdotes”: we discuss affective encounters with the ocean and the soil, foregrounding how these experiences have impacted our perspectives on the Design discipline and practice, exploring how, through a reflective dialogue, a relational understanding of these events emerges, while also allowing us to grasp the implicit nature of our more-than-human design practice better. This paper foregrounds the difficulty in expressing affective experiences through words, as well as the value of troubling feelings that can emerge when developing an understanding of more-than-human subjectivities while designing.