Designing mutualistic interfaces - Frederick Van Amstel [LECTURE]

This lecture is part of our Symbiotic Hospitality program

April 30 2026
20h - 22h

Timelab (Kogelstraat 34, 9000 Gent)

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Designing mutualistic interfaces

Digital interfaces have replaced so many face-to-face interactions that we almost forget what we are missing. As users, we take action, send orders, and sometimes hurt other people without even knowing whose faces are on the other side of the "inter-face". This habit is extending to analogue interfaces as offline actions increasingly follow online patterns. People are losing their ability to make eye contact, share full presence, and mutually recognize each other.

This is not a spontaneous habit. Most contemporary interfaces have a specific design that habituates users to adopt dress codes, roles, avatars, algorithms, and other kinds of social masks. In that way, systemic user oppression, or users oppressing other users, effectively hides or distracts from the injustices that sustain large-scale inequality systems.

Within these systems, it is still possible to design otherwise. In this lecture, Dr. Frederick van Amstel shares his research on designing mutualistic interfaces, interfaces that enable mutual recognition among users. Reflecting on participatory design projects involving analogue and digital interfaces he worked on in the Netherlands, the US, and Brazil, Frederick evaluates what worked and what didn't in practice. Also, Frederick provides a glimpse of the interface design theory he is developing with his peers at the Design & Oppression Network.

Frederick Van Amstel 

Dr. Frederick (Fred) van Amstel (he/him/his) is a transdisciplinary adventurer seeking the social justice of a world that can fit many worlds.

Frederick is known in Brazil for the self-managed collectives he founded there: Faber-Ludens Interaction Design Institute, Corais Platform, and the Design & Oppression Network. Internationally, he is recognized as an emerging scholar and an editor of the prestigious journal Design Issues.

Frederick currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Service Design and Experience Design at the Industrial Design Academic Department at UTFPR, Brazil. In the past, he was an Associate Professor of Design and Visual Communications at the University of Florida in the USA. His works can be found here.