Die Zähmungslogik des Designs: Jouissance und ethische Brüche in der geglätteten Erfahrung

This paper examines how contemporary design structures the experience of enjoyment through the production of smooth and frictionless interactions. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and the critical theory of Slavoj Žižek, the analysis distinguishes between need, demand, and desire in order to understand how design organizes patterns of consumption and attention. Interfaces, product semantics, and algorithmically structured environments stabilize forms of interaction that minimize interruption and reinforce repetitive engagement. The paper argues that this logic of smooth experience contributes to the emergence of a cynical subject who continues to participate in systems that they critically understand. At the same time, the smoothing of interaction obscures the consequences of technological systems and weakens the relationship between action and responsibility. In response, the paper proposes a critical design ethics that reintroduces moments of rupture, opacity, and friction into technological interaction. Such interruptions can reopen spaces of judgment and reconnect enjoyment with the material and ethical conditions of action.