Designing perversion

Abstract

Designing Perversion explores “perversion” as a concept that is, itself, endlessly perverted—bent, shaped, and reconstructed over time. It examines how perversion and design intersect—the so-called “normal” and “deviant” collide. Perversion here is not just a moral failure; it’s a method—a way of pushing at norms that are rarely as stable as they claim to be. Less an aberration than an undercurrent shaping everyday life. Can something so often dismissed as deviant or destructive be a tool for reinvention? Designing Perversion asks whether we design perversion—or whether perversion designs us. This practice-led dissertation explores how perversion is framed, absorbed, and repurposed in contemporary culture. It combines critical theory with autofiction and second-person narrative, moving between analysis and lived experience. Rather than presenting a single, unified argument, it unfolds as a series of interrelated reflections—on design, philosophy, technology, and art.

Date of Thesis submission	2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Chris Fleming (Supervisor), Anna Gibbs (Supervisor) & Alison Downham Moore (Supervisor)