Interaction Matters. A Material Agency’s Perspective on Materials Experience

Materials are not inert substances. They can act, change, behave. It is acknowledged by both the Materials and Design community and the Human– Computer Interaction community, which recently are merging their interests into the engagement of users with physical matter, through the experiential qualities of materials. Taking into consideration the fundamental role of materiality in the definition of the product experience, the concept of Materials Experience emerged. Nevertheless, since it is restricted to a human–centered view, the framework of Materials Experience does not contemplate the relations between non–human subjects, i.e. the interaction between the materials and other artifacts, substances, organisms, and environments. The concept of material agency in non–human relations might offer a new perspective to Materials Experience. Recently, materials with a high degree of interactivity are emerging, showing unusual properties and establishing unique relations with users, designers, artifacts, environments. They are connected, computational, augmented, smart, self–healing, aging, and growing materials. A selection of best practices and case studies is presented, highlighting their involvement in non–human relations. As a result, we propose an expansion of the framework of Materials Experience and a paradigm that highlight the autonomous, provoked and interpreted components of materials agency.