Synthetic Aesthetics - Mansy + Pohflepp http://syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp Project Synopsis http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-173 Sat, 18 Dec 2010 02:21:26 Our increasing understanding of what makes something ‘alive’ ultimately holds the promise of creating life-like machines. The ability to cross from non-living components to life questions some of our cultural notions of what constitutes nature and natural systems. Would a laboratory assembled cell fall outside of what is considered natural, even if it displays the same functional features of contemporary life? If not, how would the inevitable evolution of the organism change how we perceive its status? Perhaps this latter question highlights a crucial difference between life-like machines and classical, mechanical machines. Life evolves. Even if a laboratory built cell were built in a way to be fully understood, this embodied, intentionally engineered life-like system would "naturally" evolve towards greater complexity. In other words, the system begins with a design that is thought to be elegant, transforms as it runs, and gradually reverts to a black box. At this point the life-like machine may still perform its function, perhaps even better, but to understand its inner workings science will be required. We are looking into the implications of creating such machines and the shifting ground beneath the division of the natural and the artificial.

]]> Living and life-like machines http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/news-events#newspost-217 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:19:16 Artist Sascha Pohflepp speaks about his research in synthetic biology as part of his ongoing collaboration with Sheref Mansy for Synthetic Aesthetics. Filmed at the Becoming Transnatural symposium and exhibition, (Amsterdam, March 2011), he argues that "Life-like machines have identity," as he opens up discussion about future machines subject to evolutionary pressures.

Sheref Mansy then skyped in from his lab in Trento:

]]> Roberta 3 http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-186 Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:14:52

]]> Roberta 2 http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-185 Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:12:44

]]> Roberta 1 http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-184 Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:12:00

]]> Crystals in a microfluidic device... http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-166 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:16:22

]]> Why humanoids need humans http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-165 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:03:17  

Embodied processes, form is a necessary constituent of function. Two living things with the same form/shape will likely experience and communicate with their surroundings similarly. But yet, objects are likely more easily perceived by their function rather than their shape. For example, a chair need not be defined by specific dimensions or shapes but rather by the simple criterion "can I sit on it?" Such topics were recently covered in a fascinating seminar by Giulio Sandini (http://sandini.lira.dist.unige.it/). By the way, he is building babybots!

So perhaps our often strange draw towards building in the laboratory things that physically look like existing cells is not so misguided. 

 

]]> Synthetic Aesthetics Salon: Future natures in a culture of synthetic biology http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/news-events#newspost-158 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:10:51

 

Salon
Thursday October 28, 8 pm, with Sascha Pohflepp, Sheref Mansy, Lucy McRae and Koert van Mensvoort. 

  Science and technology are moving closer to adding living organisms to our cultural toolkit. Microbes are already making insulin and soon they may produce the world's fuel supply. Their potential is limited only by our imagination.

 

The emerging field of synthetic biology aims to transform biology as we know it into a discipline of engineering. The top-down BioBricks approach prefers to hack existing organisms. The more research-oriented field of so-called protocells aims to create minimal living machines and may on the way discover the nature of life itself. What both technosciences share is that, if successful, they will profoundly shift or even erase our distinction between nature and culture. After the first truly artificial life form has been created and employed, everything can potentially become technology.

If their main subject is increasingly an object that is made, biologists are becoming creative. What will be the role of the arts in a future where life is a thing to be designed? Will scientists become the poets of the time, or do art, design and architecture need to play a role in this development? Can these possibilities be explored collaboratively?

This Salon will be exploring why our notions of nature and technology may need to change and look closer at work in both art and science. From the body as architecture to the soft systems of the future and scientific research focussing on artificial cells as life-like machines.
syntheticaesthetics.org

Sheref Mansy

Sheref Mansy obtained his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Ohio State University. After a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Jack W. Szostak at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Sheref was awarded a career development award from the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard foundation. He joined the University of Trento as an Assistant Professor of biochemistry in 2009. His research interests are in the development of in vitro reconstructions of life-like systems...
smansy.org

Lucy McRae

Lucy McRae is an Australian artist straddling the worlds of fashion, technology and the body. As a body Architect she invents and builds structures on the skin that re-shape the human silhouette. Trained as a classical ballerina and architect her work inherently fascinates with the human body.
Her provocative and often grotesquely beautiful imagery suggests a new breed; a future human archetype existing in an alternate world
lucymcrae.com

Koert van Mensvoort

Despite the global awareness of our fragile relation with nature and the countless projects initiated to restore the balance, almost no one has asked the question: What is our concept of nature? And how is our relation with nature changing? Koert van Meensvoort is an artist, scientist, designer, inventor, philosopher, doctor and runs the blog www.nextnature.net
koert.com

Sascha Pohflepp

Sascha Pohflepp is an artist, designer and writer. He is interested in past and future technologies, notions of art, business and idealism, what they mean to us and how they inform which worlds come true and which worlds are discarded. He holds a degree in Media Art from the Universität der Künste Berlin and an MA from Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in London. .
pohflepp.com

 

]]> Post by Sascha Pohflepp http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-148 Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:53:00 Post by Sascha Pohflepp http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-145 Sun, 17 Oct 2010 23:58:34 Mattarello with the CiBio lab in the background http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-144 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:14:37 ]]> life or protolife? http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-143 Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:30:07

]]> Microfluidics http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-140 Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:41:54 ]]> Picturing Objectivity http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/residents/mansy-pohflepp#post-139 Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:13:49

 

Galison, Kastner, and Winters will talk about the historical and analytical place of objectivity and subjectivity in the making of images. More specifically, the discussion will focus on the history and current practices of pictorial representation in the sciences, addressing ways in which such representational changes have influenced and been influenced by surrounding artistic practices. The evening will be centered on "readings" of a set of paradigmatic paintings, diagrams and drawings spanning the arts and sciences. Topics include, but are not limited to: what it means to make an "objective" image of a natural object, how ideals of fidelity to nature have changed over the last 400 years, and what the implications to visual art have been or could be.

MP3

]]> Post by http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/news-events#newspost-135 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:01:52  

At the Mansy Lab, Amy Spencer is developing protocolls with micro-fluidics to manufacture vesicles, using oils and water. Fluorescent dye is added to help with visualisation under the microscope.

]]> Post by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/news-events#newspost-132 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:30:58