Speculative Experiments for an Everyday Anthropocene

Abstract

In this article I turn to creative practice as a way to focus attention on Anthropocene unsettledness within more mundane and everyday circumstance, what I frame as the “everyday Anthropocene.” For this I explore the potential of generating sensibilities helpful in attuning to ongoing uncertainty and distress. Drawing on existential philosophy and mindfulness practices, I employ a speculative design framework to design everyday artefacts with troubling qualities. Such work, I suggest, demonstrates the “polyarchic” capacities of creative experimentalism in devising quotidian strategies within ongoing vicissitudes of Anthropocene dwelling.