The Well-Oiled Machine
Synthetic biology science fiction short story by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Oron Catts,
Icon Magazine The Fiction Issue (Issue 080) Febuary 2010
Building New Life Forms at the iGEM Jamboree
Report on the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition 2009 for Wired.co.uk, 09/11/2009
Design Evolution
Microbes and the Everyday
RCA Dissertation
The Biotechnology Revolution could be the biggest force for change in the twenty-first century. But what does design, integral to the developments of the Industrial and Information Revolutions, have to ‘offer’ to the manipulation of living organisms for technological purpose? Could there be a role for designers - untrained in the sex-lives of microbes or the intricacies of RNA transcription - beyond designing the industry’s ephemera?
This was a starting point for my dissertation, which used the microbe as a guide through the different scales of biotech, from microscopic molecular interactions to the vastness of outer space. I explored how design might evolve in the future: while designers may indeed forecast and design new biotech applications, we need a discipline to work between ethics and science, engaging with both the expected and unexpected consequences of technology. Who does this big picture view belong to? An increasingly complex scientific world obscures the macroscopic. Can design claim it, bringing the skills of synthesis, collaboration and tangibility to allow us to address the future?