Multispective Representation of Wind-Power Controversies in Lower Austria

Polyphonic Personas translates the empirical insights generated by Out of Frames into representational formats. Within the framework of Multispective Experience Design (MiXeD), the project corresponds to the third methodological step: the creation of human and nonhuman personas and scenarios.

The project reconceptualizes the persona method, widely used in design research and practice, by combining more-than-human design with literary narratology. As a narrative model, it draws on Juli Zeh's 2016 novel Unterleuten, which unfolds a local wind-power conflict through a polyphonic structure. The novel exemplifies how environmental controversies can be narrated without privileging a single authoritative perspective, instead presenting conflicting viewpoints as situated, internally meaningful, and potentially incompatible.

Building on this literary model, the project will create multispective personas and scenarios based on empirical data about recent wind-power debates in Lower Austria, collected and evaluated in Out of Frames. These representations include human stakeholders—such as residents, mayors, entrepreneurs, or activists—as well as nonhuman actors, ranging from animals to landscapes and technical infrastructures. Human, animal, ecological, and technological personas do not follow a uniform template. Their construction draws on different forms of evidence and highlights experiences, sensory capacities, ecological relations, or infrastructural dependencies as appropriate.

In the InSituEx research agenda, Polyphonic Personas constitutes the representational core of the MiXeD framework. The project renders the analysis and mapping of the wind-power controversies in Lower Austria into narratively rich and performable formats that prepare the ground for Dramatic Mediation.