Attunement at Ardtornish is a long-term research project, which began in 2024. At its heart is a question: who is the human in human-centred design and Human-Computer Interaction? Through this, the research explores how we might decentre the human and move beyond anthropocentrism, questioning whose knowledge matters, whose needs are considered greatest, and challenging the privileging of the human in interactions and storytelling.

In other words, this research commits to a critical posthumanist foundation and philosophy, which challenges humanism and anthropocentrism.

This commitment reaches into some of the fundamentals of how we understand the world. Humanism positions a particular conception of “Man” as the universal measure of knowledge and value and separates humans from the world. Under a critical posthumanist orientation, separations such as mind/body, nature/culture, human/nonhuman, man/woman cannot be sustained. These divisions have historically supported extractive and exploitative behaviours, human exceptionalism, and presumed human supremacy.

This work is situated on Loch Aline, in Morvern on the west coast of Scotland. The place itself is part of the research: its weather, seasons and cycles; its histories; the knowledge, observations and stories of those who know it best; and the lives and activities of its plants, animals, fungi and other living things.

The research emerges through a series of research products and installations, developed and deployed over time.