Affective Interaction Design at the End of the World

We are living in a time of ecological and humanitarian crisis that requires imminent action from the joint fields of HCI and interaction design today. This paper presents Affective Interaction Design as an emerging research agenda directly targeting endof-world challenges. To arrive at this, the paper proposes a re-thinking of affect in HCI and interaction design based on recent theoretical advances in cultural and critical theory, in particular emphasizing how a broadened understanding of affect is necessary to better address affectively charged and uncertain situations such as those connected to the end of the world. The paper sketches out how Affective Interaction Design combines conceptual guidelines, design methods, a situational ethics and new ways of assessing the value of affective interactions over time. Finally, the paper
outlines three end-of-world frames for engaging with concrete affective design
experiments – the end of nature, the end of culture and the end of the human – where digital and interactive technologies can being used on a micro-level to catalyze changes in affective attachments on a macro-level.