About
How would you design nature?
Synthetic Biology is a new approach to engineering biology, generally defined as the application of engineering principles – such as standardization and modularity - to the complexity of biology. The aim is to 'make biology easier to engineer', through the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the re-design of existing biological systems for useful purposes, from biofuels to new medical applications. Biology is becoming a new material for engineering - a new technology for design and construction.
What is Synthetic Biology?
Synthetic biology involves understanding and modelling natural entities and processes at the molecular scale; modifying existing organisms such as bacteria through intentional design and construction; building synthetic organisms capable of accomplishing specified goals; and constructing new organisms from the bottom up.
Its supporters hope to make biology something that can be designed and constructed in the same way electronic components are pieced together to produce working computers. By using standard biological parts – ‘biological bricks’ made of DNA - some synthetic biologists hope to simplify the making of useful organisms. Other scientists are attempting to design entirely new living systems - protocells - constructed from different biochemistry.
Design is central to synthetic biology, as the living world becomes a product of design and manufacturing choices, rather than evolutionary pressures alone. But designing nature is not straightforward. We tend to understand design in terms of tangible objects like telephones and buildings than in the realm of microscopic biology. It becomes much more complicated when the realm of design is living material.
What does it mean to design nature, and how do designers fit into the process of making machines from biology? Architects work with structural engineers, product designers work with mechanical engineers. Could synthetic biology - and the questions it raises about the synthetic construction of life - benefit from such interactions?
What is Synthetic Aesthetics?
Synthetic Aesthetics is a research project run by the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Stanford University, California. Synthetic biologists, like many engineers, are concerned with ‘design’. By instigating new collaborations between synthetic biologists, designers, artists, and social scientists, we are exploring the shared territory between synthetic biology and creative practice.
Can these collaborations inform and shape the developing field of synthetic biology? What insights can design offer in designing microscopic entities for a human-scale world? Can the exchange of skills and ideas enable the development of new forms of craft and collaboration? What can art and design learn from synthetic biology?
Synthetic Aesthetics is bringing together six synthetic biologists and six artists and designers to help with the work of designing, understanding and building the living world. From July to December 2010, our twelve residents will embedded residencies. Each pair spend two weeks in the bioengineering laboratory and two weeks in their exchange partner’s art or design workspace.
The residents will share their practice, knowledge and skills, and develop new project ideas together. These are balanced exchanges, where both disciplines inform the other. We aim to catalyze interactions, develop transferable knowledge and skills, and establish a continuing network of collaborations.
Art and design engagement can encourage thought and debate in unique and innovative ways - we hope collaborative investigation beyond representation and visualisation will emerge, exploring new ideas in the processes of synthetic biology and design. Synthetic Aesthetics social scientists, Pablo Schyfter and Jane Calvert, and designer/artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg will be supporting, documenting and studying the exchanges.
We seek more than one-off experiences: the interactions will contribute to ongoing work in both communities, developing new spaces for practice, cooperation, and debate. Long-term interaction could enable design concerns to be reflected better in synthetic biology, enabling inclusive and responsive technology development.
We aim to construct the groundwork that could inform new schools of engineering and research, new schools of art and design, innovative approaches to the study of synthetic biology in society, and new approaches to societal engagement with synthetic biology.
We hope each pair will develop a collaborative project beyond the four-week intensive exchange. These projects will differ between the six pairs, perhaps physical objects, writing, film,protocols, a bacteria or something else will emerge. Our residents come from all over the world and adopt different approaches to synthetic biology (including protocell, ‘BioBrick’, and plant science); and to art and design (including architecture, bioart, industrial design, smell, music).
Synthetic Aesthetics will endeavour to provide support for ongoing collaborations. In 2011, we aim to organize two workshops, one for the synthetic biology community and one for artists and designers. We will publish the output of the residencies, framed by the issues raised by synthetic biology – scientific, ethical, sociological, design and artistic.
Synthetic Aesthetics is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (USA) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK). The Synthetic Aesthetics project team comprises Drew Endy (Stanford, bioengineering), Alistair Elfick (Edinburgh, bioengineering), Jane Calvert (Edinburgh, social science), Pablo Schyfter (Stanford/Edinburgh, social science) and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (Stanford/Edinburgh, art/design).
Participating
The call for participants for the twelve residencies is closed, but if you are interested in joining our network as an artist/designer or scientist/engineer, please get in touch. This website will feature the ongoing results of our work and track the collaborations we establish.
