From the Forest to the Global Stage: Ferran Altarriba Bertran Speaks at International “Posthuman Animal” Webinar
On February 26, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, Associate Professor at ERAM Escola Universitària de les Arts and director of the Playful Living Lab, delivered an invited talk at the international webinar series Posthuman Animal, an event that brings together leading voices exploring new ways of understanding human and more-than-human relationships. His participation places ERAM’s research at the center of a vibrant global conversation on ecological design, posthumanism, and multispecies futures.
The Posthuman Animal webinar series, organized by the research community around Posthumanism and Human–Animal Studies, gathers an international audience of scholars and practitioners working across design, philosophy, anthropology, environmental humanities, and beyond. The series is known for hosting critical and forward-thinking discussions about how humans relate to animals, ecosystems, and the planet at large. Ferran’s invitation to speak reflects the growing international visibility of the work being carried out at ERAM and within the Playful Living Lab.
In his talk, titled “When Non-Humans Are Not the Brief, But Shape the Outcomes Anyway: Reflections on Designing from the Wild”, Ferran shared insights from several years of design research situated directly within forest environments. His work explores how interactive technologies can support joyful human–forest encounters while simultaneously fostering deeper relational awareness and ecological care. This perspective resonates with emerging research areas such as Sustainable HCI and more-than-human design.
Rather than designing for forests from the distance of a lab or studio, Ferran’s approach relocates the design process into the forest itself. Through co-design workshops among trees and lakes, summer schools in mountain huts, and even weeks-long backpacking expeditions, lived experience becomes the foundation for reflection, imagination, and innovation. During the webinar, he discussed how designing from within ecosystems transforms what becomes imaginable, how more-than-human agencies influence creative processes, and how technologies designed to support human joy can also cultivate more caring relationships with the environments we inhabit.
The talk generated enthusiastic engagement and rich discussion among attendees, with participants highlighting the clarity and grounded nature of Ferran’s approach. The exchange demonstrated how practice-based design research (practice-based research) from ERAM can contribute meaningfully to complex theoretical debates, offering concrete examples of how more-than-human perspectives can be enacted in real-world design processes.
This invitation forms part of the broader research agenda of the Playful Living Lab, where Ferran and his team investigate how interactive technologies, objects, and experiences can support more joyful, relational, and caring ways of living — particularly in forest-related contexts.
To learn more about the lab’s projects and ongoing work, visit https://playful.eram.cat or follow the lab on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/playfullivinglab/
Those interested are also warmly encouraged to reach out directly to continue the conversation.
