Beyond the Modern – serie

This important new book argues that at the root of the contemporary crisis of climate, energy, food, inequality, and meaning is a certain core presupposition that structures the ways in which we live, think, act and design: the assumption of dualism, or the fundamental separateness of things.The authors contend that the key to constructing livable worlds lies in the cultivation of ways of knowing and acting based on a profound awareness of the fundamental interdependence of everything that exists – what they refer to as relationality. This shift in paradigm is necessary for healing our bodies, ecosystems, cities, and the planet at large.The book follows two interwoven threads of argumentation: on the one hand, it explains and exemplifies the modes of operation and the dire consequences of non-relational living; on the other, it elucidates the nature of relationality and explores how it is embodied in transformative practices in multiple spheres of life.The authors provide an instructive account of the philosophical, scientific, social, and political sources of relational theory and action, with the aim of illuminating the transition from living within seemingly ineluctable ‘toxic loops’ of unrelational living (based on ontological dualism), to living within ‘relational weaves’ which we might co-create with multiple human and nonhuman others.

(Designing) Beyond the Modern is the second volume in a trilogy by Eduardo Staszowski and Virginia Tassinari, following Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon (2020).This book is a provocation: how can we begin to move beyond the modern when so much of how we think and make remains entangled in its logic? Among the forces that have both shaped and been shaped by the modern project, design occupies a central role. Rather than treating it as a neutral tool, this book approaches design as a practice deeply implicated in modernity’s extractive, colonial, and anthropocentric foundations. The parenthesis in the title signals an ambivalence about whether “designing” can remain a relevant or viable practice. Without offering a conclusion, the book confronts the legacy of the Modern and calls for a caesura: a rupture, a pause, or an interval where a critical praxis, whether called design or not, might begin to take shape. Drawing on philosophy, decolonial thought, and design theory, it challenges the logics that continue to shape modern institutions and imaginaries. Through essays, fragments, and engagements with the work of Tomás Maldonado, along with a conversation with Arturo Escobar and a contribution from Aílton Krenak, this book traces tensions and potential shifts that emerge when thinking and acting beyond the Modern.

(Designing) Beyond the Modern is the second volume in a trilogy by Eduardo Staszowski and Virginia Tassinari, following Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon (2020).This book is a provocation: how can we begin to move beyond the modern when so much of how we think and make remains entangled in its logic? Among the forces that have both shaped and been shaped by the modern project, design occupies a central role. Rather than treating it as a neutral tool, this book approaches design as a practice deeply implicated in modernity’s extractive, colonial, and anthropocentric foundations. The parenthesis in the title signals an ambivalence about whether “designing” can remain a relevant or viable practice. Without offering a conclusion, the book confronts the legacy of the Modern and calls for a caesura: a rupture, a pause, or an interval where a critical praxis, whether called design or not, might begin to take shape. Drawing on philosophy, decolonial thought, and design theory, it challenges the logics that continue to shape modern institutions and imaginaries. Through essays, fragments, and engagements with the work of Tomás Maldonado, along with a conversation with Arturo Escobar and a contribution from Aílton Krenak, this book traces tensions and potential shifts that emerge when thinking and acting beyond the Modern.

This important new book argues that at the root of the contemporary crisis of climate, energy, food, inequality, and meaning is a certain core presupposition that structures the ways in which we live, think, act and design: the assumption of dualism, or the fundamental separateness of things.The authors contend that the key to constructing livable worlds lies in the cultivation of ways of knowing and acting based on a profound awareness of the fundamental interdependence of everything that exists – what they refer to as relationality. This shift in paradigm is necessary for healing our bodies, ecosystems, cities, and the planet at large.The book follows two interwoven threads of argumentation: on the one hand, it explains and exemplifies the modes of operation and the dire consequences of non-relational living; on the other, it elucidates the nature of relationality and explores how it is embodied in transformative practices in multiple spheres of life.The authors provide an instructive account of the philosophical, scientific, social, and political sources of relational theory and action, with the aim of illuminating the transition from living within seemingly ineluctable ‘toxic loops’ of unrelational living (based on ontological dualism), to living within ‘relational weaves’ which we might co-create with multiple human and nonhuman others.

In a world of endless predictions and precision algorithms, The Power of Maybes offers a daring new way forward. What if uncertainty isn’t a problem to solve, but a gift? This book reclaims hesitation, ambiguity and not-knowing as powerful tools to resist the rigid control of digital systems. Where machines seek to lock down knowledge, capture potential, dictate futures and foreclose possibilities, The Power of Maybes presents the radical idea that embracing uncertainty is essential in our age of planetary computation and offers ways of cultivating it as a form of resistance.By reframing the unknown as a powerful resource, Marenko offers a bold approach to living and thinking alongside machines without surrendering to their grip. Blending philosophy, design and critical tech studies, it challenges dystopian fears and utopian hopes about technology, and champions new ways of being—open, ungridded, unscaled. It’s a call to cultivate the unknown and nurture potential. For those ready to reclaim their agency in an algorithmic age, The Power of Maybes is a guide to living with oceanic uncertainty—and finding power in it.

In a world of endless predictions and precision algorithms, The Power of Maybes offers a daring new way forward. What if uncertainty isn’t a problem to solve, but a gift? This book reclaims hesitation, ambiguity and not-knowing as powerful tools to resist the rigid control of digital systems. Where machines seek to lock down knowledge, capture potential, dictate futures and foreclose possibilities, The Power of Maybes presents the radical idea that embracing uncertainty is essential in our age of planetary computation and offers ways of cultivating it as a form of resistance.By reframing the unknown as a powerful resource, Marenko offers a bold approach to living and thinking alongside machines without surrendering to their grip. Blending philosophy, design and critical tech studies, it challenges dystopian fears and utopian hopes about technology, and champions new ways of being—open, ungridded, unscaled. It’s a call to cultivate the unknown and nurture potential. For those ready to reclaim their agency in an algorithmic age, The Power of Maybes is a guide to living with oceanic uncertainty—and finding power in it.

Building on his foundational work on ‘defuturing,’ a deconstructive method that exposes historically the unsustainability of a great deal of design practice and its products, Tony Fry now offers a powerful response.There is no shortage of analysis of the current state of the world. Climate change impacts are increasing, environmental destruction will follow, populations and settlements will be displaced, food security will become critical, geopolitical instability and escalating dangers of conflict will grow. Such an entangled complexity threatens life itself more seriously than at any time since the Ice Age. Against the real threats to life on Earth, what are the world’s political leaders doing? The answers sit between nothing and very little.So, what is to be done? There is no immediate or simple answer. But what Contrapractice acknowledges is that nothing changes unless practices change. The intent is for the process to take on a life of its own by the many people who care about securing a viable future. It does not provide template solutions, but the ability to act. Every reader is viewed as a communicator of its message and a change agent of their own practice. Fry’s dialogue in the book with Dulmini Perera is a prompt for the book to be an object of discussion.

Bringing together global and transdisciplinary perspectives, this volume moves beyond conventional approaches to designing and speculates what might come after design in the modern paradigm.Arguing for the generative role of designing as a form of thought and action, renowned scholars examine a range of futures and contexts, emerging terminology for design activism outside the Western tradition, and theoretical and philosophical critiques of contemporary design discourse. On one hand, contributors recognize the limitations and harm inherent to design professions, such as the role of design in maintaining an exclusive luxury economy that is damaging socially and ecologically. At the same time, they highlight the ways in which a more expansive concept of designing can be a vehicle and catalyst to unleash creative possibilities.Chapters explore a wide variety of case studies including the transformative practices of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, a planetary practice of design driven by sustainability, a catastrophic car carrier fire and the need for designers to reclaim their agency, and new practices of solidarity and creative resistance in the context of French Caribbean horticulture. Building on Staszowski and Tassinari’s (Designing) Beyond the Modern (Bloomsbury, 2026) and anchored in the philosophy of Ingold, Rancière, and Latour, among other important thinkers, the contributors embrace speculative practice, our planetary existence, indigenous cultures, ‘sensible’ knowledge, and a circular understanding of production, consumption, and waste.A timely and necessary exploration into the potential of design to dismantle its inherent modernist structures to one of pluriversaility, After Design advocates for a practice that is inclusive, environmentally conscious, and culturally sensitive.