Vi vill med det här kandidatarbetet inleda en konversation med havet. Tillsammans med Karen Barads posthumanistiska performativitet, agentiell realism, vill vi utmana och ifrågasätta den antropocentriska designerrollen där materialiteten ses som passiv och designern som ensam härskare över meningsskapandet i designprocessen. Med Barads onto-epistemologiska utgångspunkt undersöker vi hur design-processen uppstår i arrangemang av både mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer, där mening framförhandlas genom relationer inom fenomen. Genom att tillämpa detta posthumanistiska förhållningssätt i lekfulla experiment tillsammans-med-havet kan vi se hur mening är situerad och skapas inom de materiell-diskursiva fenomen och apparater som utgör designprocessen.  Vi förstår designprocessen som ett ingripande i världens tillblivelse. Ett ingripande där ett kollektiv av aktörer står som medskapare, där mening, kroppar, subjekt och objekt uppförs och samformas genom intra-aktion. Detta förhållningssätt föder en medvetenhet om vårt ansvar i att ingripa i världens tillblivelse och vårt ansvar för de kroppar som skapas, en etik i handling. / In this Bachelor thesis we aim to establish a conversation with the sea. With Karen Barads posthumanist performativity, agential realism, as our companion we aim to challenge the anthropocentric role of the designer. In doing this we question the view of materiality as passive and the designer as the sole creator of meaning in the design process.  With Barads onto-epistemological standpoint we explore how the process of design is enacted in a performance of human and non-human actors, where meaning is negotiated through relations within phenomena. By putting this posthumanist notion into practice through playful experiments together-with-the-sea, we can understand how meaning is situated and shaped within the material-discursive phenomenas and apparatuses that is, and is part of, the design process.  We understand the design process as an intervening in the world’s becoming. An intervening where an assemblage of actors stands as co-creators and where meaning, bodies, subject and object is enacted and co-shaped through intra-action. This perspective gives us an awareness of our responsibility to intervene in the world’s becoming and our accountability for the bodies produced, an ethics in action.

Utifrån ett posthumanistiskt synsätt, och tillsammans med Karen Barads teori kring agentiell realism och performativitet, vill vi i det här kandidatarbetet bjuda in vår omvärlds fysiska fenomen som medskapare i vår designprocess. Med hjälp av dessa fenomen vill vi utmana och ifrågasätta den antropocentriska designerrollen genom att belysa materialitetens performativa förmåga till kunskapsproduktion och meningsskapande i designprocessen. Vi undersöker hur designprocessen och dess involverade val och handlingar uppstår genom mötet av både mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer; vi beviljas ett inifrånperspektiv som placerar oss mitt i vår världs trassel av intra-aktioner och blir därmed en del i dess tillblivelse. Genom att tillämpa detta förhållningssätt i experiment som utforskar relationen mellan den analoga världen och den digitala, undersöker vi hur dessa möten kan bidra till utformandet av en gestaltande ljudinstallation. / With a posthumanist approach and based on the theory of agential realism and performativity by Karen Barad, we want, in this Bachelor Thesis, to invite the physical phenomena of our surrounding world as co-creators of our design process. With help from these phenomena we would like to challenge and question the anthropocentric designer role by illustrating the performative ability of materiality for producing knowledge and creating meaning in the design process. We explore how the design process and its involved choices and actions emerge through the concurrence of both human and non-human actors; we are granted a from-within perspective that places us in the midst of the entanglement of our world’s intra-actions and therefore become a part of its genesis. By applying this approach to experiments which delve into the relationship between the analog world and the digital, we explore how these concurrences can contribute to the designing of a sound installation.

Through human over-exploitation of nature, more and more ocean species approach ecological tipping points. On the other hand, more and more people suffer from climate anxiety. This thesis study explored an alternative relationship between humans and marine seaweed species through design research. Situated in posthumanist design, affirmative ethics, and kinship relations, the study experimented with non-exploitative human-seaweed encounters to stimulate reflection on the predominant perception of ocean species as resources for human use. By drifting through five design experiments, the study first investigated the current human- seaweed relationship at Ribersborg beach in Malmö and then invited participants to encounter seaweed from different perspectives in several interactive workshops. As the research study swayed through several threads of theory and practice, it found a prevalent distant stance towards seaweed. While participants who engaged in attentive interaction with seaweed showed an increased curiosity for the often- overlooked species group, the study found that an interdependency between humans and seaweed was either not perceived or negatively associated. Designerly speculation led to a performance of kinship rituals to encounter this vulnerability, which allowed room for reflection on current and future ways of being with seaweed in non-exploitative ways. The trialed practices of affirmative ethics involved human participants in coming up with these practices, which is of meaning in the further search for restoring the human relationship to nature through design.