Skye Jensen
Umwelt Authority & Idiot Rituals
Ecological design in the twenty-first century is a shift away from formal design towards the designation of relationships. Throughout history, humans have built for human needs based on the humans perception of the world and their senses. Non-humans, however, have different senses for experiencing the world. When creating for new architecture, designers inadvertently create sensory traps for these other senses when indulging in visual bias in their design. In order to design with and for the non-human, a more inclusive design process must be considered that moves past visual bias to be more inclusive of non-human umwelt. A shift away from the visual as the primary medium for design.
When considering how to bring the non-human into the design process in a non-objectifying way, we must first consider how a conversation occurs. Here, listening becomes key. Listening isn’t just about hearing. It’s about giving another your full attention in an attempt to understand them. Rather than imposing our will onto the non-human, it becomes important to create space for them to contribute.
Rituals, such as manners or other social constructed guidelines, become ways in which we can practice listening in specific ways. Rituals force us to let go of our ego in order to follow agreed upon social guidelines to cultivate certain types of interactions. These socially constructed rituals make up our understanding of society. When two people within a school take on the roles of teacher and student, they agree upon the related guidelines that allow them to create certain types of interaction that allow for learning.
While these socially constructed rituals are a good and useful for many aspects of society, that doesn’t mean they are without flaw. Roleplay allows us to create safe spaces to examine and experiment with these socially constructed rituals. By listening within roleplay, we can find ways to change and improve upon the flaws that might occur within these socially constructed rituals. In ancient Greece, the term idiot meant someone who didn’t abide by the common wisdom.
This project uses roleplay to consider new social rituals within the practice of design that allow for co-authoring with the non-human. By treating the non-human as a player and giving them their own turn, they are ensured their own space and time to contribute to the process. Like a group of jazz musicians creating improvised music, the human player is encouraged not to simply create randomly, but instead is encouraged to listen to what the non-human has done on their turn to inspire a creative conversation.
Key to this conversation is the concept that while we cannot empathize with the non-human, we can sympathize them. While we cannot know exactly what it is like to experience the world in the same way as the non-human, we can sympathize that they choose certain spaces to exist based on the sense they have, and that means something. Bats go to caves, bees build hives, desert cactus grows where it’s dry. If we create human architecture based on our umwelt, and the non-human picks these spaces based on theirs, one might ask: what does a bat consider architecture?
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