Graphic and Editorial Devices for More-Than-Human Speculation: A Study of Beaverness

Abstract

This article presents a critical reflection on the role of typographic and editorial design in constructing more-than-human imaginaries, based on the artistic research project A Study on Beaverness. This research seeks to problematize the epistemological regimes that determine the valuation of more-than-human species according to cultural, political, and aesthetic frameworks. For this purpose, it takes as a case study the beaver (Castor canadensis), studying both its ecosystemic and cultural relationships in the northern hemisphere, as well as the socio-ecological conflict generated by its introduction in Tierra del Fuego. The research introduces the concept of beaverness as an assemblage of material, symbolic, and affective relationships derived from animal making, whereby the act of gnawing and building is reinterpreted as an animal technique of ecological and semantic inscription. The practical dimension of the research materializes in the creation of the experimental typeface CASTOR, conceived from the dental impressions left by a beaver on a silver maple (Acer saccarium) log in North America. The resulting 109 glyphs constitute an asemic writing system (without an alphabet or denotative correspondence), shifting the communicative function of writing toward a speculative and ethical dimension. In this operation, typographic design emerges as a multispecies co-writing device, promoting a reading that recognizes more-than-human agency and the opacity of the sign as instances of epistemological openness. Finally, it is argued that A Study on Beaverness contributes to posthumanist thought from the perspective of design, by situating typographic practice as a space for negotiation between ethics, aesthetics, and ecology.