Abstract
Designers increasingly celebrate more-than-human entanglement, touch, hybridity and care as antidotes to ecological devastation and animal exploitation. However, embroiling other animals in human realms can be a kiss of death for the animal. How is grace – careful and creative moves away from the other – possible in entangled worlds? Through the design experiment Fishwatching – a reconfigured angling setup where you catch fish on camera instead of on a hook – I articulate four tensors for comprehending grace in interdependent relational design: the taut line of human supremacy, the severed line of emancipation and the constricting net of entanglement. Finally, the slack line lets designers oscillate between standing with the other in solidarity and graciously leaving the other be.
Keywords
Grace; More-than-human design; Michel Serres; Critical animal studies; Angling; Simone Weil
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.31
Citation
Sandelin, E.(2025) Slack Lines: Comprehending Grace in Entangled Worlds, 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.2025.31
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Slack Lines: Comprehending Grace in Entangled Worlds
Designers increasingly celebrate more-than-human entanglement, touch, hybridity and care as antidotes to ecological devastation and animal exploitation. However, embroiling other animals in human realms can be a kiss of death for the animal. How is grace – careful and creative moves away from the other – possible in entangled worlds? Through the design experiment Fishwatching – a reconfigured angling setup where you catch fish on camera instead of on a hook – I articulate four tensors for comprehending grace in interdependent relational design: the taut line of human supremacy, the severed line of emancipation and the constricting net of entanglement. Finally, the slack line lets designers oscillate between standing with the other in solidarity and graciously leaving the other be.