Contrapractice

Tony Fry is Principal of the Studio at the Edge of the World, Tasmania, Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania, and the former Director of the EcoDesign Foundation in Sydney, Australia. A writer, researcher, educator and award-winning designer, he is author of 20 books including Design as Politics, Becoming Human By Design, Defuturing, Writing Design Fiction and Contrapractice.Dulmini Perera is Lecturer and Researcher at Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany. She works at the intersection of critical theory, design theory and systems/cybernetics research, and is the recipient of the Heinz von Foerster award (2021). She has written and edited a number of publications including the co-edited book The Space of Technicity (forthcoming, 2023) and the co-edited Footprint journal volume Engaging Cosmotechnical Difference in Architecture and Urbanism (forthcoming, 2024). She is a member of award-winning design and research teams in Sri Lanka and internationally.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsOpening Dialogue, Tony Fry and Dulmini PereraIntroduction: Defuturing, Practice, Contrapractice, Tony Fry1. Defuturing Now, Tony Fry2. On Practice, Tony Fry3. Contrapractice in the End Times, Tony Fry4. Reflections and Projections, Tony FryClosing Conversation, Tony Fry and Dulmini PereraAppendices, Tony FryAppendix 1. On an elaboration on Bourdieu’s understanding of habitusAppendix 2. Michel de Certeau and Practices of Everyday LifeAppendix 3. Peter Sloterdijk’s Theory of PracticeAppendix 4. Technology revealed and cybernetics stripped bareAppendix 5. Degrowth/Regrowth Glossary ReferencesIndex

Tony Fry’s latest book is nothing other than revolutionary: a call to reorientate all our knowledge and all our actions (even beliefs) to the sole task of futuring. Rather than letting the world's fate to be determined by the new nihilisms of extreme capitalism, anti-democratic politics, and climate denial, Fry proposes a concrete mission, enjoining us to engage, individually and collectively, in Contrapractice—actions that negate destructive practices and which instead release the potential to redirect action towards futuring. Is there a more important set of connected tasks today?