Biotechnology and Ethics by Paul Root Wolpe

I think it is really important for designer to really be involved in biotechnology discourse. I truly do believe that the materials and processes of design will be merged with biological ones. We are stepping in to new boundaries, but in a sense most radical new technologies have similar potential and issue at the same time. (Niel Postman is an interesting author to look at on this topic)

Biotechnology and synbio will have much more support in plants than animals when we look at design and ethics. It seems perfectly ok to manipulate plants to make new building materials, but when we speak about animals, we consider their autonomy and sensations such as pain. For example the thought of animals as slaves is unattractive. But I believe that both have implications. Maintaining biodiversity seems to be one of these issues that will rise with biotechnology. Food and medicine will not be the only aspect of life that will sound alarming when considering biotechnology.

We have yet to discover our environment, just in the rainforest alone. And yet we fail to mention the cultural implications. An example is the people in the rainforest who have now become “westernized” and choose to no longer pursue their great ancestor’s knowledge in medicine in plants of the rainforest. This means that every year, every month when great medicine men pass away, their knowledge of those plants and animals are long gone with them. How can we access that part of earth where there is the most biodiversity. There are still so many plants that we do not use in commercial medicine that could cure the diseases scientists are researching to cure synthetically. I am not exactly sure if commercialization of these plants (with the type of mass production manufacturing processes we have today – high pressure, high temperature, monocultural farming , just to name a few) will even be possible or sustainable for our future.

And I find that before running off to new technologies, perhaps we must take a look at the problems we have today and how we got here. I am in support of biotechnology and synthetic biology, and believe that designers have so much to offer in this field not simply for application and innovation but also ethics and sustainability of our materials and processes. Every time I see a biotechnological discovery or creation made simply for our own amusement or mass entertainment, i cringe a little.

Collective Intelligence: Anders Sandberg

Interesting, although I am still questioning transhumanism in my mind. I enjoy the way he speaks as opposed to Ray Kurtzweil and Nick Bostrom.

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Iris van Herpen’s new 3D printed Escapism couture collection for .MGX

This is Iris Van Herpen’s second second 3D printed fashion collection after Spring/Summer’s Crystallization. The collection is a collaboration between Iris van Herpen and architect Daniel Wildrig with the label .MGX by Materialise. The hats are designed and made by Stephen Jones. The shoes were made by Rem Koolhaas’ United Nude.  Really interesting and beautiful creations. The idea of printers is always interesting to me, and I simply wonder how far we can push and how successful they will be. Can we have them available for everyone affordably? Where would fashion go then? These are questions that we ask when thinking about any kind of 3D printers, whether for clothes, food or housing.

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Sidi Larbi Chekaoui & Antony Gormley

Sutra, Beautiful.

3D Compositions – Concepts for Iron Man 2

By Prologue

Title: Steven Pinker

ARCHIGRAM

Just came across Archigram a few days ago, incredible ideas– very futuristic from the 60s– It is inspiring to me today.

CAPSULE

 

 

 

 

BLOW OUT VILLAGE

 

AUTO ENVIRONMENT

 

Walking City

Michael Rakowitz: PARASITE

Michael Rakowitz, a New york based artist created inflatable homes for the homesless that work with excess air of the city. His work is a commentary on how the homeless live off the waste of the city. These homes change the idea of space, speak of political and social systems.

“Bill S.’s paraSITE shelter. He requested as many windows as possible, because “homeless people don’t have privacy issues, but they do have security issues. We want to see potential attackers, we want to be visible to the public.” Six windows are placed at eye level for when Bill is seated and six smaller windows for when Bill is reclining.”

George L.’s paraSITE shelter. Made on a budget of $5.00 from trash bags, ZipLoc bags, and clear waterproof packing tape. George requested a system of “ribs” that would be made of semi-translucent trash bags. In between the ribs, he wanted windows to expose the “meat” between the bones.”

The windows are made of Ziploc sandwich bags and serve as pockets to display personal items and signage for the public. Privacy and publicity can be regulated by adding or removing objects.

Design process sketches for a shelter built for Artie, a 62-year-old homeless man living near Madison Square Garden. Artie often stands in line for concert tickets at the request of scalpers. For his paraSITE, Artie requested a domed sitting space for himself and his girlfriend, Myra, connected to a lower, intimate sleeping area for two, “the lovin’ room.”

+ RAKOWITZ

Lucy Orta’s “home”

Lucy Orta’s work considers the home as something that is dynamic and humans as nomadic. These objects become Architecture , fashion, and products all in one, merging the boundaries between them. You can simply pick up your home and while wearing it as a jacket, settle somewhere else.

Here is an interesting paper called “Dress for Stress Wearable technology and the social body” by Susan Elizabeth Ryan

This paper considers the work of artists, designers, and activists who, since the 1990s, have worked with body covering as survival mechanism and social tool. Individually or within collectives, they call their work art, design, or activism; or all three. The result is a “body of records” of technological, biological, and performable wearables that have not received the attention they deserve, both as art and design, and as vehicles for ideas about threats to species survival and collective experience.

For example, in the early 1990s artists created wearable artworks in the form of survival attire embedded in localized performative events concerned with social connection under adverse circumstances. Lucy Orta is prominent among such practitioners, who formulate clothing the body as critical, social, and ethical practice within an ambient “culture of fear.” (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1) Lucy Orta, Nexus Architecture x 50: Intervention Köln 2001.

I call such work “critical garment discourse” (abbreviated as CGD), a term I propose to mean work in the form of fashion or clothing that concerns not just the body, but notions of dress–and dress, not just as historically viewed or normatively considered, but as experienced, situated and located, and empowered as a medium capable of significant commentary.

Kumi Yamashita

Beautiful little paper sculptures with a few simple folds by Kumi Yamashita

found at Potz!Blitz!Szpilman!

Darkstar: Gold

Niet Normaal

NIET NORMAAL 
Everyone’s heard of Average Joe, but has anyone ever met him?
What does he look like and how does he act?
Is he even a he?
And could you be Average Joe?
This website is dedicated to finding out.
It’s part of Niet Normaal, a new exhibition which explores what is and isn’t normal through the
work of cutting edge contemporary artists.

To find out whether you look normal, click here.

To find out whether you act normal, click here.

Open Data Ottawa

With the help of City of Ottawa, and brilliant organization of Daniel Beauchamp, MaryBeth Baker and Edward Ocampo-Gooding, the first OpenData Hackfest was held at City Hall in the Capital city. OpenData is about unrestricted access to public data provided by the government in a format that is userfriendly, creating easy access to internet applications. So basically designing applications that provide citizens with better access to local data.

Many “hackers” such as developers, designers and even citizens with no particular skills in the “code” world have created access to bus schedules, restaurant inspection reports, childcare locations, crime stats, special event license lists, and lots more. With open data, citizen application creators can work their magic, building tools to help the local citizens. Although I was sick that day and could not make it to the most part, I attended the few hours that I could, and it looked great. Many people including Gatineau and Montreal had come to the event to show off their apps, interact and initiate conversation. You can follow them on their Blog and make sure to visit the  OpenData website for upcoming events in Ottawa.

App Directory

Pecha Kucha Montreal #16: An absolutely wonderful event

Last week, I had the previlidge to be part of Montreal’s 16th Pecha Kucha night. The place was beautiful, filled with fascinating people from Artists, Product Designers to Fashion Designers. I was the last presenter, so I had the chance to see everyone’s presentations before. Ying Gao’s work really caught my eye out of the bunch however. Aside from being a gorgeous girl herself, her designs for clothing were absolutely fascinating: a beautiful manifestation of Lighting and Transparency. Probably one of my absolute favotie fashion design. I am so glad she works with light and transforms that in to her clothing. Translucency is the word and she’s managed to get it just right.

+ Visit Ying Gao’s  work

— Post Vernissage

— Exercicesdestyle

Japan Media Arts Festival

David Bowen’s Growth Modeling Device scooped up the grand prize in the Art Divistion category. The system attempts to replicate the daily growth of an onion plant.While lasers scan the onion from one of three angles, a fuse deposition modeler creates a plastic model based on the information collected. The device repeats this process every twenty-four hours scanning from a different angle. After a new model is produced the system advances a conveyor approx. 17 inches so the cycle can repeat. The result is a series of white plastic models illustrating a simple organic phenomenon from different angles.

Lawrence Malstaf‘s Nemo Observatorium

Common Flowers, by Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel (of the Biopresencefame), reverts the blue “Moondust” carnation -the first commercially available and purely aesthetic GM product- back to its natural white state using open-source DIY bio-bending methods and procedures.

Photo on the homepage: Flood Helmet Gallery from the series

Objects for Our Sick Planet, by ONG Kian-Peng.

Text by Regine of WE MAKE MONEY NOT ART

All pictures from the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Synthetic Aesthetics: Art, Design and Synthetic Biology

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is a designer, artist and researcher. Her work  exhibited at the final show, The Synthetic Kingdom, explored how design could contribute to a field that most of us find a bit intimidating and distant from our daily preoccupations: synthetic biology.

Among Daisy’s latest activities are a residency she recently completed at SymbioticA, a collaboration with James King and Cambridge University’s iGEM 2009 grand-prizewinning team and then there’s Synthetic Aesthetics. This project investigates shared territory between design and synthetic biology, invites exchange of existing skills and approaches, and makes possible the development of new forms of craft and collaboration.

Synthetic biology is a bit of a daunting area of research. It seems to be highly technical and almost too abstract. How much background in Synthetic Biology would the designers and artists who apply for the residency need?

Synthetic biology is the application of engineering principles to biology – living matter has become a new material for engineering, a new technology for design and construction. The promise is that we can simplify the way we engineer life, making it predictable and useful (though biology’s complexity still challenges us, for now). The discussions today are creating a framework that could influence biology and nature for generations to come.

The deeper I get, the more fascinating and complex it becomes and the faster the field is evolving. For the last two years I have been engaging with the construction of this potential future and the ethical implications it presents. My RCA projects, The Synthetic Kingdom – a proposal for a new branch of the Tree of Life – and Growth Assembly, with Sascha Pohflepp, investigate this (both currently on show in the Wellcome Trust’s windows).

Dunne and Raby, WHAT IF…, window display, 2010.

The principles behind synthetic biology are straightforward: standardization, abstraction and modularity. Synthetic Aesthetics is not looking for designers or artists necessarily expert in genetics, rather, how might design and art work in dialogue with the evolving science?We’re interested in the overlaps between synthetic biology and design, the ways that we can explore and interrogate science, opening up new thought areas and processes. We’re asking: how would you design nature?

Synthetic biology is multi-disciplinary, from computer scientists to mechanical engineers. As design advisor with James King to the 2009 Cambridge UniversityiGEM competition team (International Genetically Engineered Machines), we joined undergraduates in Maths, Physics, Engineering and other subjects in a two-week synbio crash course last July.

Beautiful Moss Table

The Moss tables designed by Ayodhya has been shown at the IFFS – international furniture fair in singapore 2010.

Patricia Piccinini: The Story of Science

Part I: Laboratory Procedures, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part II: Ethical Issues, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part III: Research Methods, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part IV: Thesis and Conclusions, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

+ Patricia Piccinini

Death of Alexander McQueen: A Genius

Alexander McQueen, a genius Fashion Designer, was found dead shortly after his mother’s death about couple of weeks ago. The news was announced on BBC and on his website and by now has flooded the internet and design blogs. He was truly amazing.

+ Alexander McQueen

+ Via Yatzer

+ Via BBC

Patrick Evans: Montreal Pecha Kucha

Last night at the Montreal Pecha Kucha , Patrick Evans presented his wonderful story
on "Where the snow goes". It was overall a nice night at the CCA. 6 presentors,
speaking about "City Cleanliness".

Where The Snow Goes

by Patrick Evans
Published by Smith, Bonappétit & Son
ISBN 1-897118-02-3

Patrick Evans is co-founder of the architectural collective

Inflatable Creatures: NYC Subway