Unmaking-with AI : Tactics for Decentering through Design

This article explores the intersections and resonances between unmaking and more-than-human design. We begin by aligning unmaking with decentering, a fundamental practice in more-than-human design, through their shared movement and materiality. Using Lindström and Ståhl’s notion of the double movement in un/making, we analyze a series of workshops focused on designing with AI, annotating what was un/made and de/centered during the workshops’ activities. Through this analysis, we introduce two key contributions that highlight some opportunities in the diffractive alignment between unmaking and more-than-human design: firstly, the notion of ‘unmaking-with’ as an emergent concept to describe a posthumanist unmaking practice, and secondly, three decentering tactics–situating, materializing, and enacting–that instantiate this practice through design. Finally, we discuss how unmaking can enrich more-than-human design and, conversely, how more-than-human design can help define the epistemological scope of unmaking

A design approach towards affording the trend of privacy

Society is affected by the consequences of data collection, and there are trends visible in law, the public debate and technology that could make a privacy-conscious future possible. We study how to avoid data collection from the perspective and the role of design, to provide a starting point for new developments in this context. We do so by presenting a portfolio that exemplifies a range of possible design contributions. We show how to design smart products for retail and smart home while avoiding data collection, how to convince clients through design, and how to use design to spread awareness. We present design notions and reflections that stem from this portfolio for the synthesis of new designs, that further explore the potential of design in practice that affords the trend of privacy

AI and the conditions of design: towards a new set of design ideals

The five papers in the DRS 2022 track “AI and the Conditions of Design: Towards A New Set of Design Ideals” offer radical lenses to change the narrative around AI and open pathways towards pluralist digital futures, signaling redirections for experimenting with more inclusive and imaginative design practices