Becoming Human by Design

The last in Tony Fry's celebrated trilogy of books continues his radical rethinking of design. Becoming Human by Design's provocative argument presents a revised reading of human 'evolution' centred on ontological design.

Examining the relation of design to the nature of the human species - where the species came from, how it was created, what it became and its likely future - Fry asserts that current biological and social models of evolution are an insufficient explanation of how 'we humans' became what we are.

Making a case for ontological design as an evolutionary agency, the book posits the relation between the formation of the world of human fabrication and the making of mankind itself as indivisible. It also functions as a provocation to rethink the fate of Homo sapiens, recognising that all species are finite and that the fate of humankind turns on a fundamental Darwinian principle - adapt or die. Fry considers the nature of adaptation, arguing that it will depend on an ability to think and design in new ways.

Tony Fry is Director of the sustainment consultancy Team D/E/S and Adjunct Professor of Design, Griffith University, Queensland College of Art. He is also author of Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Berg, 2008) and Design as Politics (Berg, 2010).

PrefaceIntroductionThe story framedBeing HereOrientationsNietzsche: the Man in the MiddlePart One: First PassEnds of the storyThe EnlightenmentNietzsche and NihilismHistory and GenealogyStart of a StoryProximityWhat am 'I' near?Being Here: the Self, the Social and the Physical BodyThe Touch of the Hand and InstrumentalismPart Two: Emergence Over Origin - A Relational AccountComing into Being via Natural SelectionThe Picture from Being CentredRevisiting Natural SelectionOut of the Animal: Human Emergence and TimeIn the BeginningEmergence: out of the PhylumComing into Being via Un-natural SelectionHuman Emergence and Un-natural SelectionOntological Designing and TechnicsSocial Selection and its UnderpinningsSocial Selection and CultureUn-natural Selection Re-confrontedComing into Being via Design: Tools, Technology and Un-natural ThingsDesignToolsPassing Figures of TechnologyOf Object-Thing(s)Phenomenology of the ThingPart Three: The LeapWhy Make the LeapTime WiseLeaping ForwardThe Passage from 'Here and Now' to 'Then'But Exactly, Where are We?Futuring against DefuturingPart Four: From 'Where We Were' to 'Where We Are'World-in-BeingReaching for a 'Real World'World Making and Un-makingImagination in a Blink of and EyeOut of AnimalityLiving in the Pre-imaginedReason as Pause for ThoughtOn the Subject of the SubjectThe Nature of the SubjectAnother CutThe Subject Reborn: ReconsiderationsPart Five: Now-ingsLiving in DarknessDarkened SkiesDarkened LivesRe-framingsOf Cities and Post-urban FuturesThe metrofitted cityThe abandoned cityThe informal, rapid construction city Moving citiesThe fortified cityThe underground cityThe urmadic city Post-Political ProspectFragments of the City and NationCull TimesFarewell to DemocracyPeople of the FutureIn the Face of the NegativeThe Rise of Another OtherA Culture of RelearningSuper PotentialThe RestLast words