The prototype as a Cosmopolitical Device: Ethnographic design practice and research at the National Zoo in Santiago, Chile

Abstract

This article proposes an empirical reflection related to design processes of the habitats of animals at the National Zoo in Santiago, Chile. Using the material produced by a group of design students, we describe how prototyping procedures contribute to singularize animals at the zoo, and how the prototype becomes a cosmopolitical device. We demonstrate that the prototyping operation can be understood as a cosmopolitical device when it facilitates open processes of dialogue and exploration, concerning the specificity of the animals. Focusing on environmental enrichment for chimpanzees it will be observed that prototyping displays a truly ontological vocation, prototyping the animals themselves as singular entities. The provisional, malleable and fragile character of the prototype turns it into a locus for inquiry and experimentation, confronting the ontologies involved in the interactions between designers, animals and professionals. The cosmopolitical character of the prototype derives from the ontological diplomatic forms that it unfolds: instead of stabilizing properties it demands to specify, time and again its conditions for verification. Finally, in a reflective gesture, we ask ourselves what it is that we are effectively prototyping, and to what extent the prototyping operations not only test the device, but also the animals, and the very concept of cosmopolitics.