Devices On Hospitality, Hostility and Design
Martín Ávila · Gothenburg University Publications Electronic Archive (Gothenburg University) · 2012
This thesis studies and speculates upon the in-terrelations of artefacts with human and non-human agents. These interrelations form assem-blages, some of which have emergent proper-ties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. This work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environ-ment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Through a series of design projects, the the-sis examines the potential range of an artefact’s relations. It does so by exploring grammatical associations that affect design conceptualiza-tions, creating tools (prepositiontools) as well as studying and articulating forms of symbiosis that an artefact might develop in and with its envi-ronment (¡Pestes!).