The end of nature

The arrival of the age of the Anthropocene, where the impact of human activity on our earth, climate, and environment rivals that of nature, is unsurprisingly a paradigmatic change. Persistent thinking such as the divide between humans and nature has become less tenable. This shift fundamentally changes what we think as well as how we think, having a direct impact on scholarship and academic disciplines. In “Making at the End of Nature,” Matt Ratto examines his form of scholarly investigation known as critical making, which led to his project on DIY prosthetics, in light of the broad shift to geo-engineering and the era of the Anthropocene. His approach begins with hybrid forms of knowing and making that break down the divide between the social and the technical. Challenging HCI research on a matter of scale and collective urgency is also tackled in this issue by the authors of the sixth-edition HCI textbook, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant, Maxine Cohen, Steven Jacobs, Nikla Elmqvist, and Nicholas Diakopoulos). They list 16 grand challenges for HCI researchers, designers, and developers to address over the coming years. On a sadder note, we include a written memorial for Brigitte (Gitti) Jordan, a pioneer of business and corporate ethnography who directly influenced what has become known as design ethnography and the turn to ethnography in HCI. Interactions is only as good as you make it, so we invite you as always to send us your ideas, works, projects, photos, and opinions. Visit interactions.acm.org/submissions for our submission guidelines. Ron Wakkary and Erik Stolterman eic@interactions.acm.org