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Ontological Design: Subject is Project
Subjectivity is now a creative project. This is its design manual.
Ontological design is a discipline for designing human subjects. At its core is the feedback loop: the idea that by designing objects, spaces, tools or experiences, we are designing human subjects.
The structures of subjectivity we inherited from previous centuries cannot handle the digital age. The most fundamental thing being disrupted by technocapitalism is Humanity itself. However, this book does not deny or run away from this disruption. It leans into it, formulating it into a theory for architecting subjectivity. Here, the subject is a project framed via its social relations, behaviour and beliefs. The tools of this craft are multidisciplinary, and their goal is of the utmost engaging with our very sense of existence, of reality and of being. Ontological design does not take “reality” for granted nor accept it as a given; it seeks to design it. It questions its assumptions, investigates its phenomenal appearance and tracks its tendencies.
Ontological design is not only about using multidisciplinary design tools like as architecture, urbanism, digital design, virtual or augmented realities to design contexts. It is also not only about crossing design with extra-disciplinary skillsets, like behaviourism, spatial computing, persuasion or data anthropology techniques. It is about grouping all of these parameters under the umbrella of holistic project, the post-human.
This book challenges us to establish a creative relationship with that which is by definition occult (absent, unknowable, Unconscious). We cannot be scared of thinking Design through to its ultimate as the design of religion, the design of war and of how humans relate to Death. That is how we wrest the ancient crafts of ontological creativity from the monopoly of organised religions, intelligence agencies, media conglomerates, corporations and non-linear military operatives. In the age of the algorithm, ontological design is not only about new ways to attack, manipulate or exploit. It is also a question of self-defense, and above all, of creativity. The next era is waiting to be created.
Design and “brainwashing” won’t be too far apart as disciplines in the near future. That is precisely why it is ethical to explore even the darkest outcomes of such a craft. In the face of this prospect, the solution is not to return to some imagined previous state of harmony and completeness, but rather, to carry our own contradictions into the new paradigm and in there struggle to come up with new modes to practice freedom and be truly creative. For freedom requires power, and power demands that we be not afraid to look it in the eye.
Ontological design is a discipline for designing human subjects. At its core is the feedback loop: the idea that by designing objects, spaces, tools or experiences, we are designing human subjects.
The structures of subjectivity we inherited from previous centuries cannot handle the digital age. The most fundamental thing being disrupted by technocapitalism is Humanity itself. However, this book does not deny or run away from this disruption. It leans into it, formulating it into a theory for architecting subjectivity. Here, the subject is a project framed via its social relations, behaviour and beliefs. The tools of this craft are multidisciplinary, and their goal is of the utmost engaging with our very sense of existence, of reality and of being. Ontological design does not take “reality” for granted nor accept it as a given; it seeks to design it. It questions its assumptions, investigates its phenomenal appearance and tracks its tendencies.
Ontological design is not only about using multidisciplinary design tools like as architecture, urbanism, digital design, virtual or augmented realities to design contexts. It is also not only about crossing design with extra-disciplinary skillsets, like behaviourism, spatial computing, persuasion or data anthropology techniques. It is about grouping all of these parameters under the umbrella of holistic project, the post-human.
This book challenges us to establish a creative relationship with that which is by definition occult (absent, unknowable, Unconscious). We cannot be scared of thinking Design through to its ultimate as the design of religion, the design of war and of how humans relate to Death. That is how we wrest the ancient crafts of ontological creativity from the monopoly of organised religions, intelligence agencies, media conglomerates, corporations and non-linear military operatives. In the age of the algorithm, ontological design is not only about new ways to attack, manipulate or exploit. It is also a question of self-defense, and above all, of creativity. The next era is waiting to be created.
Design and “brainwashing” won’t be too far apart as disciplines in the near future. That is precisely why it is ethical to explore even the darkest outcomes of such a craft. In the face of this prospect, the solution is not to return to some imagined previous state of harmony and completeness, but rather, to carry our own contradictions into the new paradigm and in there struggle to come up with new modes to practice freedom and be truly creative. For freedom requires power, and power demands that we be not afraid to look it in the eye.
363 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 24, 2022
6 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 13, 2024
This could have been a much better book if the author had a different audience in mind when writing it instead of his frat-boy mates.
"An egosphere is a space, such as an apartment, that is associated to the discursive category of the individual (as a modern secular theological dogma)."
Just one example of way too many which is full of "insider" languaging. Seriously? Too much technical wank-speak & not at all necessary. I get it you're smart, but I think you let your ego get the better of you by not writing it in a more accessible way.
And in spite of this it is an important book, but not enough people will be able to grok that. (Also the behavioural psychology stuff on Skinner & Eyal was psych 101 level & would have been better left out).
"An egosphere is a space, such as an apartment, that is associated to the discursive category of the individual (as a modern secular theological dogma)."
Just one example of way too many which is full of "insider" languaging. Seriously? Too much technical wank-speak & not at all necessary. I get it you're smart, but I think you let your ego get the better of you by not writing it in a more accessible way.
And in spite of this it is an important book, but not enough people will be able to grok that. (Also the behavioural psychology stuff on Skinner & Eyal was psych 101 level & would have been better left out).
November 19, 2025
He writes in his book that “Through contextual engineering, designers will be able to frame space, voice technologies, screen technologies, common sensors, appliances and internet of things to cause specific power relations, identities and subjects.
Ontological design points towards concerning yet necessary acknowledgment that it's has never been so easy to design desire as it is today. You have to aspire to understand how that is done to pursue a new architecture of man.”
This book is seminal to understand what it means to be human and have one's own subjectivity intacts by protecting your selves from attention hacking technologies. It is the most updated and insightful book on cyberspace and Ontological Design.
Ontological design points towards concerning yet necessary acknowledgment that it's has never been so easy to design desire as it is today. You have to aspire to understand how that is done to pursue a new architecture of man.”
This book is seminal to understand what it means to be human and have one's own subjectivity intacts by protecting your selves from attention hacking technologies. It is the most updated and insightful book on cyberspace and Ontological Design.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews