I am a designer, researcher and Professor of Design at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden. My research is design-driven and addresses forms of interspecies cohabitation. See also www.martinavila.com
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand.
‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Including e... more ‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Including environmental, sociological and psychological factors in production and consumption, 3Ecologies challenges prevalent models of sustainability to emphasize human agency and consequences. Sustainability is mapped over time — as histories and potential futures of products — through lifespan and extended lifecycle(s). Under development as an open-source internet application, graphical eco-labeling scheme and interactive museum installation, 3Ecologies develops novel techniques for dynamic information visualization, interactive story-telling and user interaction. By providing a long view upon the ‘life’ of things we might ordinarily take for granted, the project aims to engage a broad audience in ecological thinking
Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of ... more Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and 'predicting' the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over timethroughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations-an alternative view upon the 'life' of things that we might ordinarily take for granted. About the authors Martín Avila lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He is a doctoral candidate at HDK (School of Design and Crafts) in Gothenburg and a member of the faculty of the MA program in Experience Design at Konstfack in Stockholm. In 2005, Martín started Aestratego, a consulting company providing knowledge management to design firms.
Translation of the author's doctoral thesis: Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design. h... more Translation of the author's doctoral thesis: Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design. http://hdl.handle.net/2077/28925
In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Specie... more In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Species’. Through this case study, I discuss the possibility of designing using two decolonial strategies — "objectivity (or truth) in parenthesis" and " being where one does and thinks"— that can lead to delinking, on a micropolitical scale, from colonial social patterns as well as reconnecting humans with natural processes and beings to which they are detached by means of devices. The paper suggests that these decolonial strategies, combined with the performance of designed artefacts may help to acknowledge not only human diversity, but also the multiple and diverse nonhuman beings that conform and participate in different localities.
There is no single answer to the question of how people should live nor any silver bullet to solv... more There is no single answer to the question of how people should live nor any silver bullet to solve current ecological problems — and yet, we must seek new ways to think and act in light of emerging environmental challenges. Given the power of design to influence consumer and societal values, its role must be questioned and renewed in relation to current problematics of mass-production and (over)consumption. Switch! develops design artifacts and methods to influence perceptions and values around energy use in everyday life. Within the collaborative design research program, a conceptual and practical inquiry focused on critical interventions into sustainable design discourse.
The presentation “Responding through design” addresses the use of the ecological notion of respon... more The presentation “Responding through design” addresses the use of the ecological notion of response diversity (Elmqvist Et al. 2003) as a frame to develop naturecultures. It does so by focusing on ...
Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of ... more Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and 'predicting' the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over timethroughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations-an alternative view upon the 'life' of things that we might ordinarily take for granted. About the authors Martín Avila lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He is a doctoral candidate at HDK (School of Design and Crafts) in Gothenburg and a member of the faculty of the MA program in Experience Design at Konstfack in Stockholm. In 2005, Martín started Aestratego, a consulting company providing knowledge management to design firms.
In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled 'Spices-Specie... more In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled 'Spices-Species'. Through this case study, I discuss the possibility of designing using two decolonial strategies-"objectivity (or truth) in parenthesis" and " being where one does and thinks"-that can lead to delinking, on a micropolitical scale, from colonial social patterns as well as reconnecting humans with natural processes and beings to which they are detached by means of devices. The paper suggests that these decolonial strategies, combined with the performance of designed artefacts may help to acknowledge not only human diversity, but also the multiple and diverse nonhuman beings that conform and participate in different localities. SPICES-SPECIES 'Spices-Species' was the working title of one of three projects developed in Argentina in the context of my postdoctoral research entitled Symbiotic tactics. 1 All 1 Developed between 2014-2016 and financed by the Swedish Research Council. The design proposals of this paper resulted from a collaboration with designer Leonardo Lopez, while consulting scientists at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Vegetal Biology in Córdoba. Crucial to these studies was Mariano Lucia's advice, being a researcher specialist in carpenter bees at the Entomology Museum in La Plata. It is worth noting that the project was originally conceived through a 'ecologizing' framing rather than a 'decolonizing' one. three projects addressed everyday life, and in the case of 'Spices-Species', it addressed it at an 'intimate' scale; based on the relations we humans establish with nonhuman beings, in this case plants, by ingesting them, either because they are edible or because they can be used for medicinal purposes, thus inter and intra acting through their chemistry and materiality with our bodies.
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. As an assemblage, this work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Since relations can only be thought through a so-called natural language such as English, they must be taken into consideration through the process of languaging, understood by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela as communication about communication”...
yearold child in the Argentinean city of Córdoba is taken to the hospital and is kept breathing t... more yearold child in the Argentinean city of Córdoba is taken to the hospital and is kept breathing through artificial respiration. A scorpion had crept in through the grate of the shower and stung him. Similar humanscorpion encounters have become more common over the last ten years and have prompted a public campaign on how to avoid being stung. In this chapter we take an interest in morethanhuman urban encounters of this kind. We want to understand what it means to share a place, not with cute, cuddly, or majestic animals that are easily visible, but with small animals, insects, and organisms that we instinctively fear will hurt us. The chapter therefore contributes to a growing literature that elaborates methods and frameworks to think about animals as fellow urban inhabi tants. This has ranged from following the traces left by water voles and badgers in Birmingham in trying to upset expert ways of knowing the city; to writing accounts that try to sensitize humans to how penguins and...
This essay commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Felix Guattari’s The Three Eco... more This essay commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Felix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies. It does so by proposing a ‘diffractive’ reading of the book, suggesting latent potential in each of the overlapping “ecologies” that conformed the ecosophy sketched by Guattari. There are mainly two aspects of The Three Ecologies addressed in this essay. Firstly, the understanding of the general frame of the interrelation of the three ecologies as an “intersectional” approach. Secondly, the understanding of this form of intersectionality as a possible platform to acknowledge other-than human ‘intersections’. Through the essay I exemplify with one of my own design projects to help situating the claims and the questions raised. Finally, I propose a multimodal explorative framework of the three ecologies to explicitly articulate human and other-than-human beings inter and intra-relatedness.
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. This work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Through a series of design projects, the thesis examines the potential range of an artefact's relations. It does so by exploring grammatical associations that affect design conceptualizations, creating tools (prepositiontools) as well as studying and articulating forms of symbiosis that an artefact might develop in and with its environment (¡Pestes!).
Three Ecologies Diffracted. Intersectionality for Ecological Caring., 2019
This essay commemorates the 30 th anniversary of the publication of Félix Guattari's The Three Ec... more This essay commemorates the 30 th anniversary of the publication of Félix Guattari's The Three Ecologies. It does so by proposing a 'diffractive' reading of the book, suggesting latent potential in each of the overlapping "ecologies" that conformed the ecosophy sketched by Guattari. There are mainly two aspects of The Three Ecologies addressed in this essay. Firstly, the understanding of the general frame of the interrelation of the three ecologies as an "intersectional" approach. Secondly, the understanding of this form of intersectionality as a possible platform to acknowledge other-than-human 'intersections'. Through the essay I exemplify with one of my own design projects to help situating the claims and the questions raised. Finally, I propose a multimodal explorative framework of the three ecologies to explicitly articulate human and other-than-human beings inter and intra-relatedness.
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand.
‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Including e... more ‘3Ecologies’ makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Including environmental, sociological and psychological factors in production and consumption, 3Ecologies challenges prevalent models of sustainability to emphasize human agency and consequences. Sustainability is mapped over time — as histories and potential futures of products — through lifespan and extended lifecycle(s). Under development as an open-source internet application, graphical eco-labeling scheme and interactive museum installation, 3Ecologies develops novel techniques for dynamic information visualization, interactive story-telling and user interaction. By providing a long view upon the ‘life’ of things we might ordinarily take for granted, the project aims to engage a broad audience in ecological thinking
Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of ... more Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and 'predicting' the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over timethroughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations-an alternative view upon the 'life' of things that we might ordinarily take for granted. About the authors Martín Avila lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He is a doctoral candidate at HDK (School of Design and Crafts) in Gothenburg and a member of the faculty of the MA program in Experience Design at Konstfack in Stockholm. In 2005, Martín started Aestratego, a consulting company providing knowledge management to design firms.
Translation of the author's doctoral thesis: Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design. h... more Translation of the author's doctoral thesis: Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design. http://hdl.handle.net/2077/28925
In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Specie... more In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Species’. Through this case study, I discuss the possibility of designing using two decolonial strategies — "objectivity (or truth) in parenthesis" and " being where one does and thinks"— that can lead to delinking, on a micropolitical scale, from colonial social patterns as well as reconnecting humans with natural processes and beings to which they are detached by means of devices. The paper suggests that these decolonial strategies, combined with the performance of designed artefacts may help to acknowledge not only human diversity, but also the multiple and diverse nonhuman beings that conform and participate in different localities.
There is no single answer to the question of how people should live nor any silver bullet to solv... more There is no single answer to the question of how people should live nor any silver bullet to solve current ecological problems — and yet, we must seek new ways to think and act in light of emerging environmental challenges. Given the power of design to influence consumer and societal values, its role must be questioned and renewed in relation to current problematics of mass-production and (over)consumption. Switch! develops design artifacts and methods to influence perceptions and values around energy use in everyday life. Within the collaborative design research program, a conceptual and practical inquiry focused on critical interventions into sustainable design discourse.
The presentation “Responding through design” addresses the use of the ecological notion of respon... more The presentation “Responding through design” addresses the use of the ecological notion of response diversity (Elmqvist Et al. 2003) as a frame to develop naturecultures. It does so by focusing on ...
Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of ... more Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and 'predicting' the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over timethroughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations-an alternative view upon the 'life' of things that we might ordinarily take for granted. About the authors Martín Avila lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He is a doctoral candidate at HDK (School of Design and Crafts) in Gothenburg and a member of the faculty of the MA program in Experience Design at Konstfack in Stockholm. In 2005, Martín started Aestratego, a consulting company providing knowledge management to design firms.
In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled 'Spices-Specie... more In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled 'Spices-Species'. Through this case study, I discuss the possibility of designing using two decolonial strategies-"objectivity (or truth) in parenthesis" and " being where one does and thinks"-that can lead to delinking, on a micropolitical scale, from colonial social patterns as well as reconnecting humans with natural processes and beings to which they are detached by means of devices. The paper suggests that these decolonial strategies, combined with the performance of designed artefacts may help to acknowledge not only human diversity, but also the multiple and diverse nonhuman beings that conform and participate in different localities. SPICES-SPECIES 'Spices-Species' was the working title of one of three projects developed in Argentina in the context of my postdoctoral research entitled Symbiotic tactics. 1 All 1 Developed between 2014-2016 and financed by the Swedish Research Council. The design proposals of this paper resulted from a collaboration with designer Leonardo Lopez, while consulting scientists at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Vegetal Biology in Córdoba. Crucial to these studies was Mariano Lucia's advice, being a researcher specialist in carpenter bees at the Entomology Museum in La Plata. It is worth noting that the project was originally conceived through a 'ecologizing' framing rather than a 'decolonizing' one. three projects addressed everyday life, and in the case of 'Spices-Species', it addressed it at an 'intimate' scale; based on the relations we humans establish with nonhuman beings, in this case plants, by ingesting them, either because they are edible or because they can be used for medicinal purposes, thus inter and intra acting through their chemistry and materiality with our bodies.
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. As an assemblage, this work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Since relations can only be thought through a so-called natural language such as English, they must be taken into consideration through the process of languaging, understood by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela as communication about communication”...
yearold child in the Argentinean city of Córdoba is taken to the hospital and is kept breathing t... more yearold child in the Argentinean city of Córdoba is taken to the hospital and is kept breathing through artificial respiration. A scorpion had crept in through the grate of the shower and stung him. Similar humanscorpion encounters have become more common over the last ten years and have prompted a public campaign on how to avoid being stung. In this chapter we take an interest in morethanhuman urban encounters of this kind. We want to understand what it means to share a place, not with cute, cuddly, or majestic animals that are easily visible, but with small animals, insects, and organisms that we instinctively fear will hurt us. The chapter therefore contributes to a growing literature that elaborates methods and frameworks to think about animals as fellow urban inhabi tants. This has ranged from following the traces left by water voles and badgers in Birmingham in trying to upset expert ways of knowing the city; to writing accounts that try to sensitize humans to how penguins and...
This essay commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Felix Guattari’s The Three Eco... more This essay commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Felix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies. It does so by proposing a ‘diffractive’ reading of the book, suggesting latent potential in each of the overlapping “ecologies” that conformed the ecosophy sketched by Guattari. There are mainly two aspects of The Three Ecologies addressed in this essay. Firstly, the understanding of the general frame of the interrelation of the three ecologies as an “intersectional” approach. Secondly, the understanding of this form of intersectionality as a possible platform to acknowledge other-than human ‘intersections’. Through the essay I exemplify with one of my own design projects to help situating the claims and the questions raised. Finally, I propose a multimodal explorative framework of the three ecologies to explicitly articulate human and other-than-human beings inter and intra-relatedness.
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman a... more This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. This work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Through a series of design projects, the thesis examines the potential range of an artefact's relations. It does so by exploring grammatical associations that affect design conceptualizations, creating tools (prepositiontools) as well as studying and articulating forms of symbiosis that an artefact might develop in and with its environment (¡Pestes!).
Three Ecologies Diffracted. Intersectionality for Ecological Caring., 2019
This essay commemorates the 30 th anniversary of the publication of Félix Guattari's The Three Ec... more This essay commemorates the 30 th anniversary of the publication of Félix Guattari's The Three Ecologies. It does so by proposing a 'diffractive' reading of the book, suggesting latent potential in each of the overlapping "ecologies" that conformed the ecosophy sketched by Guattari. There are mainly two aspects of The Three Ecologies addressed in this essay. Firstly, the understanding of the general frame of the interrelation of the three ecologies as an "intersectional" approach. Secondly, the understanding of this form of intersectionality as a possible platform to acknowledge other-than-human 'intersections'. Through the essay I exemplify with one of my own design projects to help situating the claims and the questions raised. Finally, I propose a multimodal explorative framework of the three ecologies to explicitly articulate human and other-than-human beings inter and intra-relatedness.
In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Specie... more In this paper I present a design project developed in Córdoba, Argentina, entitled ‘Spices-Species’. Through this case study, I discuss the possibility of designing using two decolonial strategies —"objectivity (or truth) in parenthesis" and " being where one does and thinks"— that can lead to delinking, on a micropolitical scale, from colonial social patterns as well as reconnecting humans with natural processes and beings to which they are detached by means of devices. The paper suggests that these decolonial strategies, combined with the performance of designed artefacts may help to acknowledge not only human diversity, but also the multiple and diverse nonhuman beings that conform and participate in different localities.
Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of ... more Interactive Institute, Sweden '3Ecologies' makes visible factors affecting the sustainability of consumer products. Within engineering and economics, there are a variety of models for analyzing and 'predicting' the environmental factors such as energy, emissions and waste involved during production, consumption and disposal. We develop an expanded model, which emphasizes human impact and choices as well as potential consequences and futures. Psychological, sociological and environmental factors are mapped over timethroughout the lifespan (production, purchase, use, and disposal) and the extended lifecycle(s) of products. Case studies of familiar products in everyday life are developed to demonstrate the conceptual model, and three applications are proposed to reach designers, consumers and the general public. 3Ecologies uses diagrams and narratives to visualize the history and possible futures of products, including natural disintegration, active recycling and unexpected adaptations -an alternative view upon the 'life' of things that we might ordinarily take for granted.
Àvila, Martìn, and Henrik Ernstson. 2019. “Realms of Exposure: Design, Material Agency and Political Ecology.” In Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies, edited by Henrik Ernstson and Sverker Sörlin, 137–66. Cambridge: MIT Press. https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4522/Grounding-Urban-NaturesHistories-and-Futures-of.
Uploads
Books by Martin Avila
Papers by Martin Avila
Àvila, Martìn, and Henrik Ernstson. 2019. “Realms of Exposure: Design, Material Agency and Political Ecology.” In Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies, edited by Henrik Ernstson and Sverker Sörlin, 137–66. Cambridge: MIT Press. https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4522/Grounding-Urban-NaturesHistories-and-Futures-of.