Decomposition as Design

Abstract

HCI in recent years has shown an increasing interest in decentering humans in design. This decentering is a response to concerns about environmental sustainability, technology obsolescence, and consumerism. Scholars have introduced theoretical notions such as natureculture from feminist technoscience. Yet how such theories translate into material design practices remains an open question. This research seeks to broaden the repertoire of nonanthropocentric design practices in HCI. Specifically, it draws on the natural processes of decomposition as a creative approach to develop and test design tactics. To do so, we curate and critique hundreds of examples of decomposition in architecture, design, textile, crafting, and food making. We observe that decomposition often depends on what we call a "scaffold," and we further propose four variants of it as design tactics: fragmenting, aging, liberating, and tracing. We then tested the tactics over a period of four months in a ceramics studio using diverse materials, with a mixture of successes and failures. We conclude by reflecting on how the design tactics might be deployed in nonanthropocentric HCI/design.