Professor Alex Wilkie

Staff details

Alex Wilkie explores more-than-human futures through the intersection of design and science and technology studies.

Alex’s work lies at the intersections of design, science and technology studies and empirical philosophy, variously engaging with human-computer interaction, more-than-human centered design, speculative practices, generalized aesthetics and constructivist thought. This plays out through numerous projects and collaborations that engage and intervene in a range of substantive areas including climate change and energy, community engagement, the sociology of design practices, the sociology of expectations and futures, healthcare and interactive technologies, government policy, user studies as well as public engagement with science and technology.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD in Sociology (Goldsmiths) 2010
  • MA in Computer Related Design (Royal College of Art) 1999
  • BA (Hons) Fine Art (Chelsea College of Art and Design) 1997

Teaching and supervision

Alex convenes the MPhil/PhD programme in design. He has supervised 9 PhD students to completion and is interested in supervising students whose research variously combine design, practice-based research with science and technology studies or related social and cultural research.

Research interests

In collaboration with scholars in anthropology, philosophy, sociology and STS, Alex has published three volumes that open new domains for theoretically driven empirical and experimental research. Studio Studies (Routledge) takes inspiration from laboratory studies to set out a programme for the ethnographic study of studio practices and situated ‘creativity’ to examine the studio as a critical site for the production and politics of invention and the new. Speculative Research (Routledge) is an invitation for scholars and practitioners to take up the challenge of speculative thought to cultivate new ways of thinking, researching, and making futures. Distinctively, this project takes as its point of departure a particular lineage of thought that can be traced through the work of William James, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, John Dewey, Gilles Deleuze, and Isabelle Stengers. Inventing the Social (Mattering Press) draws together recent efforts to develop new ways of knowing ‘society’ that combine social research and inventive practice-based research in part to move beyond the performative idiom and critiques of representationalism that has preoccupied social and cultural theory and research. Alex is currently working on more-than-human aesthetics with the philosopher Melanie Sehgal, preparing a monograph on Design and STS with Mike Michael, developing an international network on the climate crisis and post-anthropocentric design as well working on patient safety, clinical error and negligence. He is series editor, with Mike Michael, of Dis-positions: Troubling methods and theory in STS for Bristol University Press.

Publications and research outputs

Book

Boucher, Andy; Gaver, William; Kerridge, Tobie; Michael, Mike; Ovalle, Liliana; Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew and Wilkie, Alex. 2018. Energy Babble. Mattering Press. ISBN 978-0-9955277-2-0

Edited Book

Sehgal, Melanie and Wilkie, Alex, eds. 2024. More-Than-Human Aesthetics: Venturing Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature. Bristol: Bristol University Press. ISBN 9781529227789

Marres, Noortje; Guggenheim, Michael and Wilkie, Alex, eds. 2018. Inventing the Social. Manchester: Mattering Press. ISBN 9780995527751

Wilkie, Alex; Savransky, Martin and Rosengarten, Marsha, eds. 2017. Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138688360

Book Section

Sehgal, Melanie and Wilkie, Alex. 2024. Beyond the bifurcation of nature: Tracing more-than-human aesthetics in times of socio-ecological crisis. In: Melanie Sehgal and Alex Wilkie, eds. More-Than-Human Aesthetics: Venturing Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature. Bristol: Bristol University Press, pp. 1-26. ISBN 9781529227789

Wilkie, Alex. 2024. To err is more than more-than-human: Patient safety and the aesthetics of a Never Event. In: Melanie Sehgal and Alex Wilkie, eds. More-Than-Human Aesthetics: Venturing Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature. Bristol: Bristol University Press, pp. 139-152. ISBN 9781529227789

Wilkie, Alex and Michael, Mike. 2023. Before the Idiot, the Poet? Aesthetic Figures and Design. In: Martin Tironi; Marcos Chilet; Pablo Hermansen and Carola Marín, eds. Design For More-Than-Human Futures Towards Post-Anthropocentric Worlding. Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 103-111. ISBN 9781032334394

Article

Wilkie, Alex and Michael, Mike. 2023. The aesthetics of more-than-human design: speculative energy briefs for the Chthulucene. Human-Computer Interaction, ISSN 0737-0024

Michael, Mike; Wilkie, Alex and Ovalle, Liliana. 2018. Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities. Science as Culture, 27(4), pp. 439-463. ISSN 0950-5431

Wilkie, Alex; Farías, Ignacio and Sánchez Criado, Tomás. 2018. For a Speculative Aesthetics of Description: Interview with Alex Wilkie. Diseña(12), pp. 70-87. ISSN 0718-8447

Conference or Workshop Item

Wilkie, Alex; Rodríguez-Giralt, Israel and Cifre Sabater, Maria. 2024. 'Aesthetic commoning, social data and wildfire management'. In: EASST-4S 2024: Making and Doing Tranformations. Amsterdam, Netherlands 16 - 19 July 2024.

Wilkie, Alex and Pennington, Sarah. 2023. 'Poster for Design for more-than-human futures: Towards post-anthropocentric worlding'. In: Design for more-than-human futures: Towards post-anthropocentric worlding. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 18 October 2023.

Wilkie, Alex. 2023. 'More-than-human aesthetics: Ventures beyond the bifurcation of nature'. In: More-than human aesthetics & Inventive care politics in design. IN3 - Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, UOC, Barcelona, Spain 6 July 2023.

Design

Gaver, William; Michael, Mike; Kerridge, Tobie; Wilkie, Alex; Boucher, Andy; Ovalle, Liliana and Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew. 2018. Design: Energy Babble.

Boucher, Andy; Bowers, John; Cameron, David; Gaver, William; Jarvis, Nadine; Kerridge, Tobie; Phillips, Robert and Wilkie, Alex. 2011. The Photostroller.

Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Bowers, John; Jarvis, Nadine; Kerridge, Tobie; Cameron, David; Wilkie, Alex and Phillips, Robert. 2010. The Photostroller (Overview).

Printed Ephemera

Boucher, Andy; Bowers, John; Cameron, David; Jarvis, Nadine; Gabrys, Jennifer; Gaver, William; Kerridge, Tobie; Michael, Mike and Wilkie, Alex. 2010. Sustainability, Invention and Energy Demand Reduction: Co-designing Communities and Practice.

Wilkie, Alex; Kerridge, Tobie; Michael, Mike; Gaver, William; Wakeford, Nina and Jungnickel, Kat. 2010. Making and Opening: Entangling Design and Social Science - conference delegate hand-out.

Wilkie, Alex; Jarvis, Nadine and Boucher, Andy. 2009. The Objects of Design and Social Science: Design and Social Science Seminar Series 2009-2010.

Project

Wilkie, Alex; Guggenheim, Michael and Marrero-Guillamón, Isaac. 2020. Creating Better Visualisations With STS.

Gaver, William; Michael, Mike; Kerridge, Tobie; Wilkie, Alex; Boucher, Andy; Ovalle, Liliana and Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew. 2018. Project: Energy and Co-Designing Communities (Energy Babble).

Coleman, Rebecca; Szerszynski, Bronislaw; Tutton, Richard; Urry, John; Anderson, Ben; Macnaghten, Phil; Brown, Nik; Wilkie, Alex and Michael, Mike. 2012 - 2015 Austerity Futures: Imagining and materialising the future in an age of austerity.

Show/Exhibition

Gaver, William; Kerridge, Tobie; Wilkie, Alex; Ovalle, Liliana; Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew and Boucher, Andy. 2016. Energy Babble. In: "Climactic: Post Normal Design", Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States, Nov - Dec 2016.

Jungnickel, Kat; Fairfax, Duncan; Ballie, Jen and Wilkie, Alex. 2015. The Dewey Organ Project. In: "Imagination Festival", Govanhill Baths, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 4-6 September 2015.

Gaver, William; Michael, Mike; Kerridge, Tobie; Ovalle, Liliana; Plummer-Fernandez, Matthew; Wilkie, Alex; Gabrys, Jennifer and Boucher, Andy. 2015. Experimental Thinking / Design Practices. In: "Experimental Thinking / Design Practices", Griffith University Art Gallery, Australia.

Thesis

Wilkie, Alex. 2010. User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London