Claudia Núñez Pacheco

I am an interaction design researcher and artist, currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden. I hold a PhD and a Master's degree in interaction design from the Sydney School of Design at the University of Sydney. From a high-level perspective, my research investigates how to design from self to others. My premise is that to design for complexity and uncertainty, designers should start by paying attention to the aesthetic qualities of their own experiences. I believe engaging in rigorous first-person research represents a pivotal first step to developing a more nuanced understanding of interactive systems, as experiences cannot exist in isolation in a pre-given objective world. Instead, I understand that experiences, cultures, bodies and technologies exist in a co-constituted space, shaping one another.

Grounded in the notion of designing from self to others, my research revolves around two main projects:

Designing aesthetic experiences from the body and felt sense: I have devoted an important part of my career to studying how to articulate aesthetic experiences and interaction qualities for design use. I have specialized in soma design methods, foregrounding the body as the centre of our meaning-making process. I have trained in specialised methods for noticing, such as Focusing and micro-phenomenology, which I have applied in my research and teaching. The Focusing method derives from phenomenology and serves as an evocation tool to direct an organised dialogue between mind and bodily self-awareness, generating meaning and unearthing insights.

Autobiographical design and nomad bodies:Being a nomad involves moving and adapting, shaping our identities through absences of various sorts, such as the absence of family or a place to settle down. Using nomadism and foreignness as a starting point to design experiences is relevant because our world is rapidly changing, challenging what we take for granted and calling for more frugal and fluid ways of living. In recent years, we have lived through a world pandemic, new manifestations of global warming, and increased political instability. Consequently, I draw on experiences of foreignness to understand mobility, change, and resilience. I use these experiences to theorise on how to design for uncertainty or communicate how it manifests in different contexts.