The way we produce and work with materials is changing. The world of bio design dreams of artificial leather, DNA-based dyes, and zero plastic. It’s a brave new world of design-led thinking mixed with a healthy dose of scientific research. In our last issue, we explored craft’s relationship to the environment. Relating to this the essays and interviews brought together in ‘Other Biological Futures’, an open-access MIT edition of ‘Journal of Design and Science’, the relationship between material and maker is wrought even closer…

The co-editors of the journal are artist Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and designer Natsai Audrey Chieza, who explore how the foundation of design materials are evolving. A fundamental question asked is, ‘can biology do this better?’. They sketch out the ways in which biodesign isn’t just a catch-all phrase for ‘good’ sustainable practice; as they point out from mass-farming practices and industrial fermentation to cotton t-shirt production, biology and design have been used to in industrial processes for years. It’s how we approach the ethics of these innovations that will matter for the future, as the introduction puts it, the issue considers the “different kinds of colonisation in biodesign, raise ethical issues in designing living matter and, hopefully, reach beyond our networks and cultures to encourage the imagination of ‘other biological futures’”. 

Chieza’s design practice, Faber Futures, looks at craft’s responsibility to the environment. Chieza’s background is in architectural design and material futures helped steer this visionary company, developing new ways to truly commit to sustainability. The systems and supply chains that govern the current fashion industry are some of the most polluting for the planet. The work by Faber Futures ask us to think about the source of our materials and where they come from. In 2019, Chieza was given the Index Award for developing a chemical-free, water-saving bio-fabrication system. Bringing together design thinking, technology and natural resources, the studio used this bacteria to create beautiful fabrics.

Left: Project Coelicolor: Scale, Void, Assemblages, 2017, Faber Futures x Ginkgo Bioworks. Photo by Immatters Studio
Right: Unity screenshot, work in progress from The Wilding of Mars, 2019.

Meanwhile, Daisy’s art practice focuses on the impact of the Anthropocene, which refers to the current geological age, defined as a period in which human activity is at its peak influence on the environment. Having spent over a decade researching synthetic biology and the design of living matter, her most recent work merges technology, ecology and extinction. From bringing back the scent of extinct flowers to envisioning how we might ‘wild’ the plant Mars, her imaginative leaps into future ecologies ask what humanity can do to ‘better’ the world.  

Their issue brings together thinkers from across a range of interdisciplinary backgrounds; scientists, designers, creative writers, curators, artists, bioengineers, activists, historians all share their perspectives on our current age and ways bio design might rethink our current approach to materiality, technology and ethics.

A core question in the journal, and a wider debate for those studying the Anthropocene, is if all humans have an equal impact on environment and climate disaster. For design writer Rab Messina, the new turn towards western bio designers taking fluids like blood, sweat, even vaginal tissue, from their own bodies directly relates to guilt for the environmental damage caused through colonisation. In ‘If You’re Reading This Your Too Tall’ Messina enters into a conversation with Dutch artist Arne Hendriks to explore the possibilities of humanity shrinking down to the size of a chicken. Privilege is presented as a visible advantage in height, which leads the conversation into very interesting directions. 

A microscopic zoom in on the edibility of insects opens up a conversation around an imagined future of factory-farming. PhD researcher Josh Evans and mushroom farmer and activist Chido Govera challenge current mass-production practices to ‘decolonise edibility’. Two Hawaiian based researchers explore what other cultural models could teach us about planetary care, led by artist Ahilapalapa Rands and microbiologist and indigenous science educator Kiana Frank.

It seems a key component of thinking through bio design is temporalities, with essays running backwards and forwards through millennia. You could read about Betul Kacar’s work as an astrobiologist, who brings back to life ancient genes and evolutionary histories, making ‘molecular time machines’ to force us to look backwards. Alongisde Kacar, afrofuturist author and filmmaker Ytasha Womack explores how fiction can imagine new futures in ‘Future Shaped by Pasts that Could have Been’. Past, present and future are presented as a multiplicity, as spatial dimensions that can be explored through the mode of the ‘time machine’. 

Squarely in the present, a conversation between bio artist Ionat Zurr and curator/robotics expert Maholo Uchida explore how new life might be created. Viewing tissue engineering and organ fabrication as new materials, Zurr approaches these through a design perspective of the ‘semi-living’; asking questions of identity, self-hood, and humanity. Uchida’s interest in robots asks similar questions; what are the ethics of creating non-human life?

The concepts wrangled with in this journal are daunting and difficult. Choosing to explore these mainly through conversations opens up the ideas in a very human way. It’s easy to follow trains of thought, explanations are put through the test of verbal communication – even when the conversation veers into the theoretical. For those thinking about the future of materiality – the who, how and why of the basis of crafting instruments – this journal is an exciting place to start. 

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READ ‘OTHER BIOLOGICAL FUTURES’ HERE.

Words: Jade French