A material-centric approach in non-anthropocentric design
Ziyu Zhou, Valentin Brück, Markus Holzbach · Proceedings of DRS · 2022
With the non-anthropocentric view, the materials—the non-human actors, can be seen as active contributors to the design process itself. Materials become carriers of a wide variety of information and reshape human and non-human relations as relational agencies. Many pioneer design activities that de-center humanity rethink the relationship among different material actors to reflect on the 'Anthropocene' issues. The approaches to designing for post-Anthropocene scenarios are usually provocative in various aspects. This paper proposes a speculative, material-centric design approach to engage discussions towards post-Anthropocene scenarios by rethinking the entanglement of human and non-human actors. This approach was used to conduct a workshop called 'Future matters'. By sharing its results, this paper aims to trigger more discussions on the en-riching roles material plays in post-anthropocentric design.