Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Prof. Ilona Gaynor
Second Advisor
Dr. Ijlal Muzaffar
Third Advisor
Prof. Mattia Casalegno
Abstract
This thesis investigates how industrial design can transcend extractive technological paradigms in favor of relational interfaces that foster planetary attunement. Framing the climate crisis as a 'crisis of imagination', the research challenges the Western bifurcation of nature and culture by drawing on Indic cosmologies- which recognize stones, plants, and ecosystems as conscious at different levels and participants in a shared cosmic field. By synthesizing research in Biosemiotics, Quantum Information Pansycishm, and Neuroscience, the project redefines intelligence as a distributed, more-than-human phenomenon.
The research materializes as a speculative design artifact: a device that functions as a somatic prosthetic for planetary resonance. Utilizing a strategy of Subtractive Participation, the object eschews traditional data-output in favor of an interface that captures the ultra-litho sound of lithospheric beings and generates a quantum field to facilitate the human body’s sensing of lithospheric communication. Through sensing technologies that capture low-frequency environmental sounds, the artifact enables an embodied encounter with the Zero Time of geological matter.
Rather than translating nature into consumable data, the device proposes a state of Passive Resonance between the human body system (sheaths) and the deep-time consciousness of the Earth. Positioned at the intersection of Critical Design and Indigenous ontologies, this work acts as a provocation, asking how technology might evolve from an instrument of extraction into a tool for listening, resonance, and kinship with the planet’s silent citizens.
Recommended Citation
Dharesh Kumar R, Disha, "Somatic Prosthetics for Planetary Resonance" (2026). Masters Theses. 1642.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1642
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