Design Examples that Contextualise the Essay

Non-anthropocentric design

Non-anthropocentric design that challenges conventional ways-of-thinking, is exemplified in Erik Sandelin’s publication “What about the birds?”. Under the alternative notion of human-decentered design and questioning human exploitation of animals, the ‘silly-yet-profound’ narrative introduces more-than-human perspectives on design, such as codesign, posthuman theory, biotechnology and critical animal studies. The plot sees Designer tasked by Client to build Birdhouse, a visitor centre about bird migration. Designer, who is trained to “listen to all voices, no matter how tiny”, wants to involve the birds in the design process. The book consists of two parts: ‘The Story’, an illustrated tale, and ‘The Notes’, a section offering behind-the-scenes reflections and pointers for those who seek to further explore post-anthropocentric creative practices. Accordingly, this practical furthers the Chthulucene thesis, whereby all 'critters' and complex assemblages are recognised, whilst also touching on Desser's work, whereby the interconnectedness of global migratory systems is highlighted as necessary for housing rich specie-diversity and upholding key planetary systems. ­

Although the idea of a national pavilion is one that may be considered an outdated concept, rooted in Victorian empire-building, the London Design Biennale has created a contemporary platform which allows different countries to explore the value of design on a national scale. It has influenced cultural identity, national economics and considers ways to enrich the lives of inhabitants. 2018’s Latvian entry, Arthus Analt’s Matter to Matter installation, visualises ‘people leaving their prints on nature’, by inviting visitors to leave messages on a wall of condensation, exploring the ways nature reclaims the marks we leave on it and highlighting the use of organic material to educate an audience. Latvian designers think sustainably because they are truly close to their natural environment, providing a sustainable way of thinking from a very young age (Analt, 2018). Accirdingly, Analt notes how the various attitudes to human environments differ depending on culture, as already understood with Bolivian legislation and the North American Native struggles. Hence, it can be argued that pushing eco-conscious design in the West is what’s best for a non-Anthropocentric future. 

Furthermore, photography is being used in modern times as a tool for enhancing human connection with the planet. Graphic designer David Griffin, who specialises in photographic-based projects and publications, particularly under the authoritative enterprise of the National Geographic, advocates the importance of this form of design, stating: ‘photography carries a power that holds up under the relentless swirl of today's saturated, media world, because photographs emulate the way that our mind freezes a significant moment’ (TEDTallk, 2008?). Griffin emphasises his belief in the literality of photography’s ability to draw real connections between audience and subject, and thus its necessity as a positive agent for understanding the challenges and opportunities facing our world today. Thus, through the National Geographic platform, the use of photography within the scope of journalism can play a vital role in exposing corrupt industry, preserving cultural diversity (by showing the uniqueness and beauty in native worldwide cultures), and opening the public eye to worldwide disparity and animal conservation. All of which consider telling a story through composition, layout, colour, and how combining these images with words can really deliver a message. In this way photojournalism somewhat mirrors graphic design’s practice of using these factors to enhance the communication of images. Advancements in camera technology expanding our knowledge of human and nonhuman activities through documentation, gives rise to the possibility of a future that incorporates the animal kingdom within our global considerations, thus forming new media ecologies that contest the Anthropocene. 

Petrocapitalist Design

However, the glamorisation of industry through photography can be seen as forms of petrocapitalist or anthropocentric design that furthers the institutional perception of the dominant human. Beautiful Destruction (2014) is a book by photographer Louis Helbig that aestheticises the industrial development in the forests of Northern Alberta. Including essays by prominent individuals with contrasting ideas about this highly controversial issue, the publication provides a broad-scale insight of both pro- and anti- industry and environment contributors. Those from a pro-industry perspective, including CEOs and former presidents of energy producers, highlight the tar sands' value in providing energy security for North America. Whilst, Canadian media personality and conservative political activist Ezra Levant, goes as far as to describe the pictures to be that of ‘a liberal, peaceful, democratic society’ based on ‘ethical oil’ distinct from the ‘conflict oil’ of Middle East Dictatorships (Demos, 2017, 68) a comment that simply furthers to the socio-political East versus West divide. Nevertheless, the variant outlooks comprised in the publication allows exposure of the political corruption permitting petrochemical Canada, as Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch defends, stating ‘all speaking to the fact that if ‘conflict oil’ exists anywhere at all it is here’. Helbig declares that the oil/tar sands lend themselves to aerial photography as it is not possible to see, interpret and understand them as effectively from the ground. However, as Demos comments; ‘the aerial shots isolate the poisonous industrial exploitation from its larger socioeconomic and politico-cultural environment’ (Demos, 2017, 89) and that such an abstraction is then exploited for commercial gain via art galleries and online shopping. Demos expands, stating the distance between the capturer and subject displaces the scenes from the misery of those living in or near the industrial apocalypse. The effects of these disorientating perspectives produce wrongful sensations of visual pleasure which in turn alienates the viewer, aiding a perverse enjoyment of images of our own annihilation (Demos, 2017). Mirzeoff further comments on this idea of translating scenes of destruction into compositions of aesthetic beauty, stating the visualisations of the Anthropocene which ‘comes to seems natural, right, then beautiful’ anaesthetises ‘the perception of modern industrial pollution’ (Mirzeoff, 2014, P).

Such ‘disturbing and seductive imagery’ is further seen in the works of photographer Edward Burtynsky whose large-scale prints of industrial landscape further display ‘environmental toxicity transformed photographically into visual splendour’ (Demos, 2017, 68). His latest endeavour ‘The Anthropocene Project’, which has been describes as the intersection of art and science, captures the extensive views of human-altered landscapes, as both images and in a feature documentary film The Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, reaching a mass audience. His intentions for the imagery to be “attractive to the eye” whilst still recognising “beneath the surface there’s always a bigger, deeper environmental issue” offers a somewhat oxymoronic statement in the designs effectiveness of communicating to an audience such a catastrophic issue. Furthermore, as with Helbig, ethical concerns of the carbon footprint within their practice is not considered, as even when trying to deliver a greater message, there are other ways of communication without aiding the pollution and destruction at the core of the topic’s discussion. Besides, it is easy to miss the expression of both local and global environmental violence from such monumental and awe-inspiring photographs. Consequently, he constructs ‘the petro-industrial sublime’ (Demos, 2017, 65), and such depictions become interpreted as scenes of modern development masked under the idea of an ‘American Dream’. Thus, this example of anthropocentric design finds aesthetic and vibrancy in large scale projects that reject the intricacies and necro-politics of its practice.

However, visual literacy protesting the petrocapitalist agenda is both present and strong, showing the Anthropocene without whitewashing the bigger picture or naturalising petrocapitalism in the name of commercialism. Such design is evidenced in the unique collaboration between photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. Their publication Petrochemical America depicts the on-the-ground environmental destruction and human cost of the fossil fuel industry along the Mississippi River (Demos, 2017). The book’s documentation of ‘Cancer Alley’, one of America’s most industrialised regions, highlights the Southern oil development’s necropolitical agenda of ecocide. Cancer Alley’s politics is one of clear inequality, as Demos notes its impacts on certain populations more than others, including ‘formally enslaved low-income African-Americans and working-class white communities, without resources to move to cleaner areas or lacking the resolve to abandon their homes, [are the ones who] bear the brunt of petrochemical exposure, while corporation enrich distant shareholders [live] safely in clean, affluent environments’ (Demos, 2017, 74). As such, the publication’s powerful context encourages its viewers to participate in opposing fossil-fuel extraction and its unevenly distributed effects. ‘A political relationality’ that would be ‘otherwise absent in Anthropocene discourse’ (Demos, 2017, 71).

Unlike the work of Helbig and Burtynsky, this somewhat dystopian example of design, details the polluted apocalyptic landscape, focusing on the damaging socio-environmental causes and effects of oil industry development, rather than the aesthetical abstract qualities of it. In the book’s ‘Glossary of Terms and Solutions for a Post-Petrochemical Culture’ case studies, tools, and practices are brought together that offer models for change, such as suggestions for citizen action networks, green chemistry, sustainable agriculture, public transportation and environmental law that reject the linear, mechanistic and distributed waste in favour or looped and living paradigms centred on human energy and renewable resources (Scape Studio). Thus, instead of another populist artist narrative on the issue, this ‘joint enterprise’ uses a municipal of creative skill and the power of concrete design, to effectively communicate to an audience the issues surrounding the petrochemical industry and ‘our society, which has become inextricably intertwined with its output’ (Misrach, 2013). The result being a narrative whereby the visualisation of the Anthropocene is not just transparent but principled.