Designing for Multispecies Collaboration and Cohabitation

Abstract

Human-nature interaction, joining the agendas of sustainable interaction design and nonanthropocentric HCI, takes up the challenges presented by climate change and environmental crisis. My dissertation focuses on studying sustainable farming practices through posthuman concepts to experiment ways of supporting multispecies collaborative works. Specifically, my research aims to discover and develop alternative design paradigms and practices for sustaining both human-nature collaboration, cohabitation, and co-creation.

Full text

Designing for Multispecies
Collaboration and Cohabitation
Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47408 USA
cynliu@iu.edu
ABSTRACT
1
Human-nature interaction, joining the agendas of sustainable interaction design and
nonanthropocentric HCI, takes up the challenges presented by climate change and environmental
crisis. My dissertation focuses on studying sustainable farming practices through posthuman
concepts to experiment ways of supporting multispecies collaborative works. Specifically, my
research aims to discover and develop alternative design paradigms and practices for sustaining
both human-nature collaboration, cohabitation, and co-creation.
KEYWORDS
Human-nature interaction; posthuman; decentering humans; multispecies; sustainable HCI.
INTRODUCTION
My research focuses on human-nature interaction and sustainable agriculture to attend to
environmental challenges. Specifically, I engage in posthuman theories and investigate through on
the ground experimental farming, collaborative food making, decomposition in agriculture and
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CSCW’19 Companion, November 9-13, 2019, Austin, Texas, USA
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3311957.3361861

Designing for Multispecies Collaboration and Cohabitation
CSCW ’19, November 9th-13th 2019, Austin, TX
Figure 1: Photos taken during my ethnographic
fieldwork in small-scale farms in Yilan, Taiwan
and Indiana, USA.
design to explore ways of working with nature, as opposed to controlling or working against it.
Building on my on-going ethnographic study on small-scale, sustainable farming practices in Taiwan
and Indiana (figure 1), my work proposes decentering the human in design to envision more
responsible ways of engaging in technological interventions. This line of research has led to a series of
publications in prestigious SIGCHI venues, including CHI2019 [14], TEI2019 [12], DIS2018 [11], and
LIMITS2018 [13]. In Summer, 2019, my three-month research internship program at Microsoft
Research focuses on creating and deploying environmental sensing technologies to support
environmental sustainability, public health, and social equity in urban spaces.
CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION
Prior to my doctoral studies, I was a product designer at an international personal computer design
firm. Having witnessed truck after truck of hardware and electronic waste being transported to
landfills every year, I am committed to forging together a stronger connection between design
practices and environmental sustainability. I build on the values and frameworks of sustainable HCI
but push for a broader definition of sustainability by bringing to the forefront the moments “when
species meet” [5]; I am interested in exploring the possibilities and challenges in decentering the
human in interaction design.
To do so, I turn to posthuman theories which consider humans, nonhumans, culture, and nature as
intricately entangled and thus challenges the taken-for-granted ontological boundaries [6,7]. My
research draws on anthropologist Anna Tsing’s work, especially her theoretical concept, “arts of
noticing,” to see “the divergent, layered, and conjoined projects that make up worlds” [20:22], to
cultivate the ability to acknowledge and simultaneously step in and out of familiar frames of
reference [9], and to imagine alternative futures by questions about “what is and what can be” [1].
RELATED WORKS AND MY RESEARCH OUTPUT
Two interaction design research communities emerged with the attempt to address challenges
associated with environmental crisis through design: sustainable interaction design and
nonanthropocentric HCI. In the former, studies show increasing interests moving from individual
persuasive technological design towards addressing the broader socioenvironmental challenges
[2,16]. More recently, scholars in nonanthropocentric HCI reflect on the limits of human-centric
design and argue the need to establish an alternative design agenda that encompasses a multispecies
worldview [3,19]; this body of research provides insight into nurturing interspecies collaboration [4],
cohabitation [18], and collaborative survival [8,10].
Posthuman concepts are particularly useful in resisting falling into habitual anthropocentric
perspectives by “considering the social as a tissue of associations between humans, nonhumans, and
objects working in the realisation of new relational formations.” [17:7]. However, the ability to move
from automatic perceptions toward seeing interspecies dependency is not easily cultivated; to Tsing,
to “notice differently” requires shifting attention between multiple threads of a relationship [20].

Designing for Multispecies Collaboration and Cohabitation
CSCW ’19, November 9th-13th 2019, Austin, TX
Figure 2: The process of decomposition and the
notion of natureculture co-creation is the guiding
principle for a series of ceramics experiments.
Figure 3: Tracking and gathering conditions of a
compost pile with Ode to Soil first prototype.
With the interest in increasing human-nature collaboration and cohabitation, I focus on translating
abstract posthuman concepts into more trackable interaction design interventions and actionable
design strategies. For example, in [12], my co-authors and I unpack through Haraway’s posthuman
theory natureculture the process of decomposition. Through a series of design curation, analysis, and
experiment, we propose the concept of “scaffolding” for those who are interested in natureculture co-
creation. In [13,14], we report our 2-year ethnography working alongside with small-scale farmers
and how we learn to see weeds and pests as companions. Through embodied understanding of the
earth, we reflect on ways of cultivating intimacy with the biosphere with and through technology.
In [11], my co-authors and I combine together visual thinking and critical reflection to “see” the
theoretical concept of natureculture by capturing through photographs different interfaces of
human-nature interaction. In [12], the posthuman concept natureculture is further consolidated
through a series of ceramics experiments (figure 2). Very recently, I experiment embodied knowledge
as yet another way of knowing [14]: in reflecting the symbiotic encounters, I work with eco-friendly
farmers, animals, plants, and soil, I look into nontraditional users (e.g., nonhumans) and emerging
forms of uses (e.g., interactions between human and other species) to help open a design space for
technological interventions. In DIS2019, I am co-organizing a workshop to explore and develop
methodological approaches for HCI researchers and practitioners to “notice differently” and envision
ways of engaging in nontraditional and marginal users through technological interventions [15].
RESEARCH GOALS, QUESTIONS, AND METHODS
When human activities render resource exhaustion, species extinction, and other forms of conflicts
between humans and the environment, new ways of noticing, responding, and imagining are needed
to move toward to preferable futures. Specifically, my research questions include: (1) How may
interaction designers incorporate natural phenomenon and nonhuman actors into their creative
processes? (2) What can design practitioners learn from the interaction between humans and
nonhumans to inform design practices? (3) How may technological interventions support more
sustainable, ethical, aesthetic, and intimate forms of human-nature interaction? The methods involve
in my dissertation research are multi-fold, including qualitative social science methods (e.g.,
ethnography, interviewing, and observation), art-based inquiry methodologies (e.g., research through
design), and approaches originated from the humanities (e.g., interaction criticism and close reading).
My on-going ethnography focuses on sustainable farming experiments, including eco-friendly
farming, small-scale farming, organic farming, and AgTech. Common across these practices is the
farmers’ commitment in exploring the alternatives to industrial agriculture, with a particular focus on
reducing the use of pesticides to integrate more harmonious between land, people, environment, and
resources. In these alternative farming practices, the farm is not so much a controlled system, but an
assemblage characterized by multiple systems or rationalities always evolving and changing. By
working alongside with the farmers, I reflect on posthumanist values and learn to “notice differently.”

Designing for Multispecies Collaboration and Cohabitation
CSCW ’19, November 9th-13th 2019, Austin, TX
CONTRIBUTIONS AND GOALS FOR CSCW DC
My goal for the CSCW DC is to receive feedback
on reworking existing HCI research methods for
multispecies collaboration as well as leveraging
other disciplinary input (anthropology, STS,
environmental science) for biodiversity research
in HCI/CSCW. I hope to contribute to the CSCW
DC by sharing my experience in designing and
theorizing multispecies collaboration.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my PhD advisors, Jeffrey Bardzell and
Shaowen Bardzell, for their all-time tremendous
mentorship and unconditional supports. I’m
thankful for my committee members, Eli Blevis
and Barbara Dennis for their insightful feedback.
I’m grateful for the inspirational conversations I
have with Justin Cranshaw and Asta Roseway at
Microsoft Research in supporting my dissertation
work. This research is supported in part by
Taiwan’s Ministry of Education and the NSF
under award #1513604.
Building on my previous ethnographic and design works, I am currently designing an acoustic probe,
“Ode to Soil”, that tracks different attributes of compost piles (e.g., temperature, humidity, biometric
movement) and translates the digital reads into musical notes (figure 3). The design explores a more
embodied and aesthetic form of human-nature interaction and collaboration that attunes human
senses to the rhythms of the natural environment. The next stage of my dissertation research
involves deploying this acoustic probe to examine how human-nature engagement might unfold to
cultivate biodiversity and sustainability.
REFERENCES
[1] Eli Blevis. 2018. Seeing What Is and What Can Be: On Sustainability, Respect for Work, and Design for Respect. In
CHI ’18, Paper No. 370.
[2] Jaz Hee-jeong Choi and Eli Blevis. 2010. HCI & sustainable food culture: A design framework for engagement. In
NordiCHI ’10, 112–117.
[3] Rachel Clarke, Sara Heitlinger, Ann Light, Laura Forlano, Marcus Foth, and Carl Disalvo. 2019. More-Than-Human
Participation: Design for Sustainable Smart City Futures. Interactions, 60–63.
[4] Laura Forlano. 2016. Decentering the Human in the Design of Collaborative Cities. Design Issues 32, 3: 42–54.
[5] Donna J. Haraway. 2008. When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press, London.
[6] Donna J Haraway. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
[7] Joanna Latimer and Mara Miele. 2013. Naturecultures? Science, Affect and the Non-human. Theory, Culture & Society
30, 7–8: 5–31.
[8] Ann Light, Alison Powell, and Irina Shklovski. 2017. Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age. In C&T ’17.
[9] Silvia Lindtner, Shaowen Bardzell, and Jeffrey Bardzell. 2018. Design and Intervention in the Age of “No Alternative.”
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2, CSCW: Article 109.
[10] Jen Liu, Daragh Byrne, and Laura Devendorf. 2018. Design for Collaborative Survival: An Inquiry into Human-Fungi
Relationships. In CHI’18, 1–13.
[11] Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu, Jeffrey Bardzell, and Shaowen Bardzell. 2018. Photography as A Design Research Tool into
Natureculture. In DIS ’18, 777–789.
[12] Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu, Jeffrey Bardzell, and Shaowen Bardzell. 2019. Decomposition as Design: Co-Creating (with)
Natureculture. In TEI ’19.
[13] Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu, Shaowen Bardzell, and Jeffrey Bardzell. 2018. Out of Control: Reframing Sustainable HCI Using
Permaculture. In LIMITS ’18, Article No. 2.
[14] Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu, Shaowen Bardzell, and Jeffrey Bardzell. 2019. Symbiotic Encounters: HCI and Sustainable
Agriculture. In CHI ’19.
[15] Szu-Yu (Cyn) Liu, Jen Liu, Kristin Dew, Patrycja Zdziarska, Maya Livio, and Shaowen Bardzell. 2018. Exploring
Noticing as Method in Design Research. In DIS ’18.
[16] Juliet Norton, Nico Herbig, Lynn Dombrowski, Ankita Raturi, Bonnie Nardi, Sebastian Prost, Samantha McDonald,
Daniel Pargman, Oliver Bates, Maria Normark, and Bill Tomlinson. 2017. A grand challenge for HCI: food +
sustainability. Interactions 24, 50–55.
[17] María Puig de la Bellacasa. 2010. Ethical doings in naturecultures. Ethics, Place and Environment 13, 2: 151–169.
[18] Nancy Smith, Shaowen Bardzell, and Jeffrey Bardzell. 2017. Designing for Cohabitation: Naturecultures, Hybrids, and
Decentering the Human in Design. In CHI’17, 1714–1725.
[19] Vanessa Thomas;, Christian Remy, and Oliver Bates. 2017. The Limits of HCD: Reimagining the Anthropocentricity of
ISO 9241-210. In LIMITS ’17.
[20] Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton University Press.