LA RELATION SUJET/OBJET EN DESIGN ENVIRONNEMENTAL

THE SUBJECT/OBJECT RELATIONSHIP IN ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

Abstract

Anthropocene thinkers challenge the dualisms that underlie modern Western thought. This article addresses our representation of the subject/object relationship because it is at the heart of environmental issues and proves decisive in the different forms of human design. It is of interest to semiotics, whose narrative grammar was initially based on the conjunctions and disjunctions of subjects with objects of value, which was in line with dualism.

After the “aesthetic encounter” in Greimas, this relationship is now considered as an interaction of interchangeable poles. Semiotics considers co-presence and adjustment, integrates the “powers of action” and “retroaction” of non-human agents, and pays attention to interactions with the environment and their temporality.

Drawing on the knowledge gained from phenomenology and cognitive sciences, mesology shifts our interest from the environment to the milieu and requires us to take into account the trajection of the medial body in the practices that shape the milieu. The very notion of the subject must be redefined.

Ecosemiotics, whether Peircean or enunciative, grants expressive and appreciative skills to non-human living beings and focuses on the choice and sensitivities of the instances, in non-deterministic approaches. This paradigm shift leads to the development of new models of coexistence.