Dasein Ist Design: An Ontological Discussion of Design in the Ecological Crisis Time

Abstract

The paper introduces preventive innovation as a possible way for design to address global challenges within the broader context of the Bio Revolution, understood as a dual convergence – technological and cultural – between biology and artifice. The interrelated condition, amplified by environmental crises and technologies that go so far as to recreate nature, requires a broader reflection on innovation and a proactive and preventive attitude that allows us to develop a new awareness of the reality surrounding us. To focus on the ontological dimension of design in this context, we will describe part of the results of “Biovision of the Future”, a research and critical reflection path promoted by the authors with the contribution of Stefano Marzano. The results under discussion are five “attitudes” deriving from the critical reconsideration of some paths that design takes in the Bio Revolution. These may be valuable references for design approaches aimed at preventive and post-anthropocentric innovation.