Living Design Beyond the Now
How Biodesign Speculates About the Future
Living Design Beyond the Now
How Biodesign Speculates About the Future
Author: S. B. van den Haak
6095143 Address: Stavangerweg 444 1013 AX, Amsterdam The Netherlands E-mail: s.b.vandenhaak@gmail.com Date: 30 July 2014
Supervisor: dr. M. I. D. van Rijsingen Second reader: dr. J. Boomgaard
Master Art History – University of Amsterdam
Cover: Jack Mama & Clive van Heerdan for Philips Design, Microbial Home, Bio-light, 2011, glass chambers filled with bioluminescent bacteria.
Contents:
Introduction
5
Chapter 1 – Defining biodesign and speculative design
8
Chapter 2 – Speculated Fictional Futures
26
Chapter 3 – The Present in Speculated Futures
35
Conclusion
45
Literature
48
Introduction
Biodesign has been, since it started to materialise itself onto the design scene, a rare bird among the flock of other movements in the creative industry. First because the whole notion of implementing living organic material in objects of daily use was unprecedented and is still regarded as simply ‘weird’. Biodesign does not just ‘re-enact’ nature, it is not about plain bio mimicry, but a combination of nature, science and creativity is of concern here.1 Second, there is the fact that most of the designs are difficult to produce on an
industrial scale as some take years to ‘grow’, others are still in the conceptual phase and some can even be dangerous when mistreated. A tree, for example, that has been genetically modified in such a way that it can generate light and thus can replace street lighting, should not distort existing ecosystems. In a commercial world as the design world, where eventually even the most strange prototypes are supposed to lead to something the consumer would like to buy and use, this kind of design is regarded with fascination and scepticism.
The designs, although maybe not directly to be taken into the commercial field, do however provoke debate and speculation. We might as well address biodesign as design
for debate or speculative design. Both are terms used by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
who see in these kinds of design ways of improving the future. But also as a medium to discuss what possible futures may be ahead, what kind of future we would prefer and how design could help us to get to this preferable future. This kind of design is not about the creation of new products or, more in general, about posing solution for existing problems, but about asking questions and speculating about problems that might rise in the future.2
In this thesis I will discuss biodesign within the framework of speculative design and how it thus speculates about the future and what these speculated futures can tell and teach us about the present. In the first chapter I will frame the field of biodesign and make clear what is generally understood as such, why, for example, tulip-shaped lamps are not biodesign but the tulip itself is. This chapter will discuss several ideas and visions on the subject and thus I will try to frame the field of biodesign. In this chapter I will also explain Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s concept of speculative design and how 1 Meyers 2012, 8-9.
this kind of design is linked to the Future. The emerging field of synthetic biology will also be addressed as the synthetic biologists aim to create organisms that are of use to us; in fact these organisms can be regarded as biodesign.
The second chapter will be about the different kinds of futures biodesign speculates about and how, although the great variety the field of biodesign displays, there are certain main themes to be found in the fictional futures the designs speculate about. In this chapter I will explain how these speculated futures engage in ecology and the environment. The designs aim to make industrial production less wasteful by harnessing biological processes. Biodesign sometimes even completely skips industrial production and the design has to be ‘grown’. By implementing these biological processes and bringing design to life the designer bring design closer to nature and aim to lessen the burdening of the environment and the ecology of the planet. Nature itself is a strange term as the concept seems to imply something that is untouched by human culture. In
Next Nature Koert van Mensvoort argues that that specific notion of nature does not
exist anymore, as practically everything on this planet has been touched and changed by humans. He states that nature is rather something that is beyond the control of humans, like hurricanes, comets and the sun, but also computer viruses, the Internet, traffic and economy are phenomena that, although created by us, have moved beyond our control. Van Mensvoort calls these cultural phenomena that have become nature Next Nature.3
Nature and culture blend and merge, the borders between the two concepts are slowely shifting and perhaps even dissolving. Disappearing boundaries are a key concept in Donna Haraway’s theory on the blending of culture and nature, id est: the boundaries between human and animal or human and machine, thus making us all cyborgs.4
The third chapter of my thesis will go deeper into the imagined futures in order to get an idea of what we can learn from these futures about the present. These fictional futures all have ‘the now’ as common birthing ground, therefore by analysing these futures interesting new insights about ‘the now’ might come up. Just like science fiction is always not just a story about the future, but also a lesson about the present, biodesign’s speculated futures can teach us about today’s society. In this chapter the effects of the disrupted ecology of our planet and the risks and benefits of synthetic biology will be discussed. A vibrant debate about both is going on: how should we treat 3 Van Mensvoort and Grievink 2011, 13 and 30-34.
the brave new world of synthetic biology? How will our morals and values change and what kind of consequences might this have for our future society?
I think it is necessary to execute an investigation into biodesign like I will do with this thesis as little to nothing has been written on the subject in the academia. It is, however, a very current issue as there have already been several exhibitions about it (Design and the Elastic Mind at the MoMA in New York and Biodesign at the New Institute in Rotterdam are strong examples), as well as an on-going project at Mediamatic in Amsterdam called ‘Bio Industry’. There has also been a lot of journalistic interest in biotechnology and genetic modification (for example the Monsanto-gate), both are technologies that are being extensively used in biodesign. I address the consequences synthetic biology has on our morals and ethics shortly in chapter 3 and a lot of debate is going on about how our society must handle a so-called Biotechnological Revolution. Biodesign and synthetic biology are definitely not the same thing, but they are related: in both disciplines life is harnessed to the benefit of a future user. I dare to predict that in the future synthetic biology and biodesign may even become the same thing. This current debate, the contemporaneity of the designs and their speculative aspects (which includes very valuable speculated futures) make biodesign a worthy subject of academic research; a lot can be learned about what is going on in our contemporary society just from speculated and predicted futures.
Chapter 1 – Defining biodesign and speculative design
When one searches on Google using ‘biodesign’ a large variety of completely different things appear. Amongst others: the exhibition Biodesign, held at The New Institute in Rotterdam during the autumn and winter of 2013, the accompanying catalogue, the Biodesign Program at Stanford University, the Biodesign Institute of the Arizona State University, a company that produces medical equipment and the website of an alliance of medicine developers. Apart from the first two, the website of the exhibition and the catalogue and the website of The New Institute, everything Google finds has to do with the medical world. In this chapter I will try to pinpoint what biodesign actually is and to set the boundaries of the term. As my quest on Google showed the term is definitely not singular; instead, it has many branches, predominantly in the direction of the medical world and the world of design. However, there are of course cases in which these two fields merge and boundaries disappear. Although biodesign in the medical world an exciting and interesting subject is, I will concentrate mainly on biodesign in the context of product design and architecture, as well as its relationship with bio art. I will do so by giving an overview of the different definitions of the concept of biodesign. This way, I will try to create a clear image of the kind of design this thesis is about. I shall discuss the views of different writers, theorists, scholars and designers, not only to set the boundaries of what biodesign actually might be, but also to outline at what kinds of events, exhibitions, fairs and conferences it has appeared and why this kind of design has appeared at all. This way I will try to frame the field of biodesign, where it happens, why it happens, what is generally understood as such and what should be understood as such. By using examples of designs that belong to the field of biodesign I will show the broadness of the field, but also the different aspects of these designs that unify them as a single field within the world of design. I have made a selection of designs that are in my opinion exemplary for the field of biodesign.
The exhibition mentioned above, Biodesign; Nature, Science, Creativity, can be regarded as a milestone for biodesign. It was the first exhibition that solely focused on biodesign and therefor has great impact on its definition. The curator of the exhibition, William Meyers, writes in the catalogue:
“Biodesign goes further than other biology-inspired approaches to design and fabrication. Unlike biomimicry, cradle to cradle, and the popular but frustratingly vague ‘green design,’ biodesign refers specifically to the incorporation of living organisms as essential components, enhancing the function of the finished work. It goes beyond mimicry to integration, dissolving boundaries and synthesizing new hybrid typologies.”5
Meyers refers here not to designs that have the shape of natural phenomena, like a tulip-shaped lamp, but to designs that do not work if the organism that is part of the design has died, or is not healthy enough to keep the design functioning as it is supposed to do. Meyers’s definition creates a link between biodesign and bio art. The use of living material, which is such an integral part of biodesign, is also one of the defining factors of bio art.6 However, specification of the medium is difficult, as the use of medium is very
diverse and can only be described as ‘the manipulation of the mechanisms of life’.7 But
there also differences as bio artworks made for conservation, as many artworks through art history are, provided that this art history is seen with an object-centred vision. Most of the artworks are more about showing the process of the ‘coming to life’ of the specific artwork of a temporal nature.8 This is not the case with most of the biodesigns as the
examples presented in William Meyers’s exhibition show. The earliest examples of biodesign are to be found in the northeast of India, in the state of Meghalaya, where since the 1500s bridges have been built from the roots of rubber trees, the Ficus elastica. The roots span rivers of over 30 meters wide and are strong enough for humans to pass from one side to the other.9 The trees have been shaped to use as bridges while staying alive.
By keeping the organic material that is used for the construction of the specific object alive, rather than killing it before using it these bridges comprise exactly what William Meyers argues biodesign is about: human made objects of use that in one way or another incorporate living organism (in this case, the tree). It is clear that this very early example
5 Meyers 2012, 8-9. 6 Hauser 2011, 131. 7 Hauser 2011, 134. 8 Hauser 2011, 132. 9 Meyers 2012, 28-29.
of biodesign (avant la lettre as one could say) was definitely not meant as a temporal project, but as a long-lasting solution for the problem of wet feet when crossing the river.
Image 1.
Two more contemporary examples are the Genetic Barcelona Project by Alberto T. Estévez for the Genetic Architectures Office of the International University of Catalonia and the Microbial Home by Jack Mama and Clive van Heerdan for Philips Design. With the first project, which is still only a concept, Estévez proposes to make trees and vegetation in Barcelona bioluminescent so that the conventional street lighting can be replaced. Bioluminescence is made possible by certain proteins and consumes very little energy and does not create any harmful waste. If the trees would emit light, conventional street lighting would become superfluous and large quantities of electrical energy would be saved.10 In other words: the project speculates about a future where natural processes as
bioluminescence will be used instead of conventional, and more ecologically burdening, methods of light production.
Image 2.
The second example, the Microbial Home by Jack Mama and Clive van Heerdan for Philips Design, also concerns the ways in which we waste natural resources in order to keep on living as we are used to. The Microbial Home is designed as an ecosystem where matter is used to the maximum through a system of recycling, processing and filtering. Organic matter is transformed into methane gas that fuels the cooking range, a recycler that lets plastics get digested by mushrooms, which can, in turn, be harvested and eaten. The methane gas producing station also fuels a lamp that works on bioluminescent bacteria. The Microbial Home is designed to sustain itself with as little material input as possible.11
Image 3.
The last two designs have been created with the future of our environment in mind, how we treat the planet and our natural resources. The designers aim for a more sustainable way of living and producing by speculating about it with their designs. The fact that they engage with the future and speculate of how we might safeguard the future signifies a certain permanence, not are they, like the artworks Jens Hauser wrote about, at all temporal but meant to withstand the test of time.
Latro by Mike Thompson is also a speculative design that consists of a large glass
vessel in which algae live. The only things the algae need to stay alive are sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. The first, obviously, is provided by the sun, the last can be administered by the user by breathing into the vessel via the handle. A special opening in the device is used to water the algae. Underneath the glass chamber in which the algae live a lamp is placed that works on the electricity the algae produce and that is saved in a battery. During the day the algae, through photosynthesis, produce electricity and at night the battery provides the lamp with biologically generated energy. This design speculates about the energy plants produce and how we could save that energy to
provide small electrical devices with electricity that has been generated without burdening the environment.12
Image 4.
Plant Fiction by Conny Freyer, Sebastian Noel and Eva Rucki investigates the role
of nature in a future society in which nature and culture have blended. The speculated future involves such an advancement of technology and intensified cultural refinement that nature has been subjected. This kind of progress, however, will result, according to the designers, in pollution, resource depletion and loss of biodiversity. To counter these negative side effects of an ever developing society the three designers imagined a series of scenarios, each accompanied by a fictional plant. The Selfeater Plant, for example, breaks down its own cellulose to facilitate the fermentation of ethanol, which is used for biofuels. The Pandemic Plant changes the colour of its leaves from green to red when it detects airborne pathogens. Diseases could be mapped more easily as the, quite often,
rather difficult to sense diseases can be easily noticed by monitoring the plants.13
Image 5.
Not only does this project anticipate the results of the ever-quickening development of Western society, it also speculates about a future in which nature will be harnessed to aid society. This technologically and culturally advanced society will, by engineering life and nature to its benefits, merge culture and nature to make sure environmental damage is kept to a minimum.
The book Synthetic Aesthetics; Investigating Synthetic Biology’s Designs on Nature does not so much engage specifically into biodesign, but rather how synthetic biology can shape the future of design, industry and modes of production. Synthetic biology literally makes life itself malleable and this new technology could, according to the editors of the book, have far-reaching consequences for our daily life. Three revolutions are described in the book: the Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century, the Information Revolution in the twentieth century and finally, the latest one, the ‘Biotechnology Revolution’. As the Industrial Revolution made mass production possible and the Information Revolution resulted in information being accessible to almost anyone, the Biotechnology Revolution will again dramatically shape our world through intentional design or redesign of biology and nature.14
Synthetic biology is strongly related to biodesign, but it is better regarded as some sort of portmanteau to which biodesign belongs, together with other expressions of the field.15 For the field of synthetic biology, life itself is simply a new material to use, just as
plastics used to be in the twentieth century.16 Synthetic biologists try to lay the
foundations for a future in which we can engineer living matter faster, cheaper and more efficient. This ambition is driven by dreams and speculations of a future in which our ecologically burdening and disrupting way of industrial production will be replaced by enhancing, designing and redesigning life itself in order to lift the burden of our ecosystem.17 Synthetic Aesthetics aims to generate discussion and raise questions about
this development in synthetic biology. The editors want to change one-dimensional 14 Ginsberg et al. 2014, ix-x.
15 Synthetic biology is in essence on purpose designing or redesigning biology (ibidem), this can result in mutated organisms, biological processes used within regular products of use or engineered life forms. In that sense, biodesign can be seen as a part of the field of synthetic biology, however this specific field mostly focuses on genetic engineering and microbiology, while this, in turn, is only one side of biodesign, which also works with whole trees and animals.
16 Ginsberg et al. 2014, x. 17 Ginsberg et al. 2014, x-xi.
views on the subject to enable a more creative and out-of-the-box way of thinking in order for us to interact with synthetic biology and its possible future.18 For Alexandra
Daisy Ginsberg design and art can spark such a way of thinking, but she also states that design has to evolve.19 For her biodesign is not specifically about the design of biology,
but rather design with biology. This implies that design will be implemented with some of the signature properties of life: death, reproduction, evolution and self-adaption. As William Meyers also stated, biodesign is not about biomimicry. Ginsberg calls it: “a call to design with the logic of biology”.20
Projekt Genesis that was part of the Ars Electronica festival in Linz in September
2013 focused on synthetic biology. Just as Ginsberg argued that a new way of thinking is necessary, this exhibition stated that speculation and questioning are of vital importance, as the speed with which this new technology is developing is tremendous. The aim of the exhibited work is to reframe our worldview and how we look at nature, bioengineering and synthetic biology.21
The notions of biodesign and synthetic engineering as mentioned above all agree on one thing: the product has to be designed by humans, but it must incorporate, or be made of, living matter. Whether it is a bridge grown out of the roots of ancient trees or a selectively bred and genetically modified tulip, all of them live, but are made by us, controlled by us and are of some sort of use to use. Herein, however, lies a certain complexity as the organic processes that have been harnessed in biodesign sometimes do most of the work. When a bridge is built out of two still living trees, only by connecting the roots of trees on either side of the river with each other, is the bridge made and designed by humans? Without this small human interference the trees might never have shaped the particular bridge as their roots might never have gotten intertwined, but the process of growing and further connection between the trees is entirely the work of both trees and not that of humans. As this example shows it is sometimes hard to say about biodesign that it has been ‘made’ and ‘designed’ by humans as designers sometimes only start a natural process in a different context, resulting in a biodesign.
18 Ginsberg et al. 2014, xvii. 19 Ginsberg et al. 2014, 107-108. 20 Ginsberg et al. 2014, 108. 21 Gardiner 2013, 236-240.
Another aspect that I think is evident when analysing the field of biodesign is the fact that all writers, theorists, curators and designers focus strongly on the speculative ideas behind the objects, about the visions on the future and about the discussion and questions the designs raise.
Debate, questioning and speculation are important aspects of biodesign and especially this makes it very interesting when seen from Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s point of view, namely that of speculative design. In their book Speculative Everything they argue that design is most commonly seen as a commodity that can be bought and sold and that either solves a problem or is of practical use to us, the user. However, since design is all around us it has a certain agency and by making design speculative it will initiate the user to think about the questions the particular design raises.22 For Dunne and Raby
speculating is about the future. By speculation debate can start and by imagining possible futures we can decide what future we prefer and how we can work towards such a future. Speculative design can be seen as a space:
“It is an important space, a place where the future can be debated and discussed before it happens so that, at least in theory, the most desirable futures can be aimed for and the least desirable avoided.”23
In the case of speculative design possible futures function as a tool to better understand not only what kind of future we want and which future to avoid, but this tool also helps to understand the present. Chapter 3 is devoted to how speculating about the future can tell us about the present and what, in the case of biodesign, these speculated futures exactly tell us. The future can be divided into different kinds of future, ranging from impossible to possible as shown in the figure below. Intersecting the plausible futures and the possible futures is a section that represents the preferable futures. Speculative design does not necessarily try to predict the future but it opens up the possibilities for
22 Dunne, Raby 2013, 1-2. 23 Dunne, Raby 2013, 66.
discussion. These possible/plausible futures initiate thinking about the future and public debate so that society can try to decide what this ‘preferable’ future will really look like.24
Image 6.
Imagination is a key concept here as it enables us to think beyond the here and now so that speculation is possible. Basically it is about creating fictional worlds, however, these fictional worlds have to be placed within the probable, plausible or possible futures, outside these realms lies the realm of fantasy.25 Dunne and Raby distinguish two kinds of
worlds: the actual and the fictional. The first is the world we occupy in the here and now, the latter is everything that lies beyond that.26 The most pure fictional worlds are the
utopia and the dystopia. History has taught us that building a utopia always ends in war and misery; communistic Russia tried to enforce communism top down and the same happened in Nazi Germany. The utopia, however, exists in the realm of the impossible, perfection does not exist, nor will it ever, thus it is much better suited as a goal to aim for
24 Dunne, Raby 2013, 2-6. 25 Dunne, Raby 2013, 4. 26 Dunne, Raby 2013, 69-71.
rather than a world to actually build, as it is a strong reminder of virtues and idealism.27
Speculative design is about how things could be. In that sense it is entirely conceptual, as quite often the designs do not really have a use other than making us think and raising questions. The examples Dunne and Raby use to clarify their theory are often products that do have a use, but it is almost always a use that is either not yet useful us yet or a use that is still unknown, but that we might discover in the (near) future.28 Speculative
design can consist of objects that are intentionally fictional and of which the designer did not really have the desire to make them ‘real’. Quite often there are very few connections with the actual world, the object is not (yet) functional or uses a visual language we are not at all familiar with. These objects belong to a world that is different to everyone who sees it. That is because there is almost no point of common reference for the viewers; all of them can see a different world.29 These speculative designs can extend the horizons of
our imagination, making us speculate about different worlds. They are not specifically meant to be real one day; they exist to make us think of that fictional reality they propose.30
An example of a speculative biodesign is the Moss Table by Carlos Peralta and Alex Driver. The table is a conceptual design that demonstrates how Biophotovoltaic technology could be implemented in our objects of use. Underneath the glass table top moss is planted and through photosynthesis small amounts of electricity is generated, which, by using Biophotovoltaic technology, can be used to light the built-in lamp.31 In its
current state however it does not produce enough energy to make the lamp functional, it merely speculates about the idea that it could, in theory, work. Because this design is not functional (of course it works perfectly as a table, the lamp can be powered with regular electricity and the moss beneath the table top makes it all the more decorative) but makes one imagine a world in which it is, it can be framed within the theory of speculative design, as it proposes a fictional reality.
27 Dunne, Raby 2013, 73. 28 Dunne, Raby 2013, 11-13. 29 Dunne, Raby 2013, 89-90. 30 Dunne, Raby 2013, 90-92.
Most of the biodesigns are not yet possible and therefor not yet available for us to consume. By not being available to the general public, as they are hitherto not on the market, these designs are, according to Dunne and Raby, not yet ‘real’. In consumer society, Dunne and Raby argue, something only becomes reality when it is bought.
“The moment money is exchanged, a possible future becomes real”.32
As I mentioned earlier in this chapter biodesign does not necessarily mean products of use that incorporate living organic material, there is also a medical branch of biodesign. I would like to propose the use of the term ‘speculative biodesign’ for the first kind of biodesign and the term ‘medical biodesign’ for the latter. In this section I will explain the difference between the two kinds of biodesign.
Stanford Biodesign, an academic institute connected to Stanford University, aims to train students and fellows in the Biodesign Process, “a systematic approach to needs finding and the invention and implementation of new biomedical technologies.”33 The
institute focuses on innovation in medical technology and is closely related to Stanford Bio-X, an interdisciplinary research institute that brings together researchers from medicine, science and engineering.34 Both these institutes focus on interdisciplinary
research, thus crossing boundaries to pursue innovation in the medical field and to unravel the mysteries of the human body.35
The Biodesign Institute of Arizona State is created on the idea that by re-imagining the rules and processes of nature one can overcome medical problems with bio-inspired solutions.36 As is the case with Stanford Biodesign, the Biodesign Institute
thrives on interdisciplinary research. This interdisciplinary approach is similar to what is happening in the biodesign I am writing about in this thesis. Artists, designers, engineers and scientists work together to create these designs. Scientists often eagerly grasp the opportunity to collaborate with artists and designers and to break loose from the regulations of the academic and scientific world.37
32 Dunne, Raby 2012, 37-38.
33 Stanford Biodesign. 28-06-2014. <http://biodesign.stanford.edu/bdn/index.jsp> 34 Stanford Bio-X. 28-6-2014. <https://biox.stanford.edu/about/biox-history> 35 Ibidem.
36 Arizona State University Biodesign Institute. 28-06-2014. <http://www.biodesign.asu.edu/about>
However, despite the similarity of interdisciplinary work and research, the medical kind of biodesign differs from the biodesign this thesis is about. As I discussed above this medical biodesign always focuses on solving problems, whether it is to find new ways to combat diseases or to better understand biological processes, there is always a problem for which a solution has to be found. In the other biodesign the focus lies much less on problem solving, but rather on asking questions and speculation, sometimes even by creating problems. Of course there are designs that contain the solution to a problem, like the Microbial Home by Jack Mama and Clive van Heerdan as discussed above, but just as this project deals with the problem of waste it also questions the way we treat our waste materials and speculates about how we might improve this behaviour towards waste.
The fact that de medical biodesign is strongly related to medicine is not so much a point of difference as there are quite some biodesigns that engage with human health. Agatha Haines designed the Circumventive Organs, three concept organs that comprise bio-printed matter and organs that originate from the bodies of various animals.
Electrostabilis Cardium uses the organ of the electric eel that generates the electric pulse
the animal uses to defend itself. This conceptual organ harnesses this electric organ to function as an organic defibrillator. Human health is a keyword for this design but as it is in essence conceptual and speculative – speculating about different ways of enhancing our bodies and questioning the current use of mechanic defibrillators – and as it has not been created within the academic institution, but by initiative of the designer herself, it cannot be accounted to medical biodesign.
Image 8.
This academic context that draws such a dramatic line between medical biodesign and speculative biodesign becomes very clear when the use of specific terms is analysed more closely. ‘Experiment’ means for artists and designers to try something out, it is open-ended and its goal is to reveal potential ideas; in science this is a tool to prove whether a hypothesis is true or false. In science the experiment has to be repeatable in order to create credible data, but for artists and designer an experiment is mostly a unique happening and part of the greater design process. The same counts for the word ‘artefact’ which is the focus of attention for most designers and artists (of course sometimes art does not end up with a tangible artefact, for example for performance artists, but the artwork itself, the performance, functions as ‘artefact’, quite often the recording of the artwork also functions as such), for scientists, however, the artefact is a distracting thing, often caused by humans, that is mostly ignored.38
Although they are related, biodesign in medical science is something different from speculative biodesign. The first has a strong focus on problem solving, while the latter is more about speculation. Also the kind of research that is conducted differentiates the two as is explained above with the two examples of the use of terms. 38 Ginsberg 2014, 40-41.
However, speculative biodesign can be concerned with medicine, as Agatha Haines’s example illustrates, but the other way round has not happened yet. In the diagram below the relation between speculative biodesign and medical biodesign are illustrated.
Diagram explaining the differences between speculative biodesign and medical biodesign.
Speculative design engages with the future by raising questions and initiating debate. Biodesign is in that sense quite the same. As I mentioned above biodesign raises questions about synthetic biology, about ethics and law, ways of production and how we could change and hopefully improve in the future.
Biodesign engages with the future by speculating about sustainability: different ways of production and construction. These designs spark imagination by proposing fictional worlds that do not necessarily have to become real one day. In chapter 2 I will discuss how all the different designs from the field of biodesign speculate about the future and how these possible futures overlap.
However, not all biodesign is speculative. This biodesign is almost always solving a problem and takes place in an academic context. This is the medical biodesign. It is related to speculative biodesign and there are certain similarities, but it is, in essence, something different. Speculative biodesign that engages with the medical world exists
and proposes fictional realities for what harnessing biological processes in medical procedures could do, but it still does not belong just to the medical world: it is still speculative design.
In the previous chapter I argued that biodesign can be considered as speculative design as it raises questions and debate about synthetic biology, ethics, law and industrial production. Most importantly, however, it speculates about the future. These designs carry visions of the future. The envisioned futures are all still speculative and fictional; we do not know whether they will come true, but the message they convey with these future fictions is a clear one. In this chapter I will argue that every design in the field of biodesign, no matter how diverse they may be, envisions and works towards a future of environmentally sustainable design and production. This will happen through merging culture and nature in such a way that a distinguishing them from each other will be difficult and that we will have to give new meaning to the word ‘nature’.
Economic development in the world relies on an industrial production of commodities that quickly consumes natural resources. Not only resources that come back (within time), like still growing material as wood, but also fossil fuels as oil and gas. Growing demand all over the world prompts industries to use even more of these resources and fuels and as a result these grow ever more scarce every day.39 This development has been
going on since the Industrial Revolution and is heavily disrupting the environment. It demands a new model of production, one more sustainable and ecologically friendly. Designers active in the field of biodesign find these models in nature where systems sustain themselves with a minimum of waste.40 Biodesign is a clear result of this as it
enhances natural processes and living organic material in order to produce design that is sustainable. Apart from sustainability it also, as stated in chapter 1, speculates about the future. It creates fictional, but possible, futures that revolve around the idea of implementing natural processes in design so that the designs become more sustainable and more ecologically friendly.41 Sustainability has become a new dimension to how
performance in architecture and design is evaluated and biodesign is a prime example of how the future might be shaped.42
39 Meyers 2012, 12. 40 Ibidem.
41 Meyers 2012, 10. 42 Meyers 2012, 15-16.
By speculating about the future, biodesign creates fictional future realities that make us think about how we might give shape to our future. More specifically, according to William Meyers, biodesign speculates about a future in which sustainability is one of the prime characteristics of good design.43 I would like to press this a little bit further
and state that biodesign not only speculates about a sustainable future, but also about a future in which the boundaries between nature and culture become rather opaque. By implementing natural processes in buildings and objects of use, designers actually inject culture with nature thus making it neither nature nor culture.
A design that illustrates this is the Fab Tree Hab by Mitchell Joachim, Lara Greden and Javier Arbona. Trees and plants grow over reusable scaffolds to form the basic structure of the house, when the living material is mature the scaffolds are removed and can be reused.44 The base of the house is the structure of trees and plants that give the
house stability. Instead of using fabricated materials, this house literally ‘grows’ and will keep on growing in the future, only making the house stronger and more stable. Nature and culture become one in this house, as living organic material is shaped into a culturally recognisable form: a house.
Eric Klarenbeek’s Mycelium Chair is also a good example. A 3D-printed mould made of bioplastic is filled with a printable substance in which mushrooms grow. The roots of the mushrooms interweave and create a stable material called mycelium, which is strong enough to support a grown man. Instead of fabricating a chair, Klarenbeek speculated about letting the chair grow by using the natural process of the formation of mycelium.45 This way the ecologically burdening production of chairs is taken over by
the much more sustainable variant nature itself has created. This chair is designed and created by humans, but the actual production was in the hands of the mushrooms growing inside the mould, thus the boundary between nature and culture dissolves, the chair is a crossover between culture and nature.
43 Meyers 2012, 15. 44 Meyers 2012, 58.
Image 10.
The question arises, however, whether the organic living material in these designs can be considered as nature. Is nature that is man-made nature? One could argue that with the rise of biodesign, synthetic biology and genetic modification nature is slowly vanishing from the earth. Nowadays nature in the traditional sense has almost completely disappeared from our planet; there is barely a single patch of earth that is untouched by humans. We tend to think of tulips as products of nature, they have become, however, just as much a cultural product, an intricate piece of design and the result of selective breeding and genetic modification. The tulip is actually just the same as the tulip-shaped lamp, only the tulip lives and dies, and the lamp can only get broken.
Nature has becomes culture. 46 The word nature originates from the Latin word
natura, which the Romans associated with everything born. The Greek word for nature,
however, was physis and for the Greeks this concept was linked to everything that grows. 46 Van Mensvoort and Grievink 2011, 12-35.
For the past centuries we have been using the Roman interpretation of the term. Namely, that nature is everything that is born, and everything that is made by humans is culture. However, we live in a time wherein born phenomena are actually created by man, think of genetically modified tulips or even bonsai trees. More and more ‘born’ things are controlled and affected by humans, from flowers to vegetables, even the climate. However, our environment is more and more dominated by the things we made and these creations tend to become more and more complex, until they start to form a ‘nature’ of their own, we lose control over them. Thus, according to Van Mensvoort, the borders between nature and culture are not disappearing, but they are shifting. According to him the association the Greeks had with the word nature might be more applicable than the one the Romans had: Seeing nature as something that grows autonomously beyond our reach and culture something that is completely under our control. If we follow this new distinction, a tulip becomes culture and a computer virus nature.47
The dividing line between nature and culture is thus the way we give meaning to the words. Humankind has once sprung forth from nature, what makes us so different from nature that we see it as something else, as ‘The Other’? Since we started to create our own nature, resulting in uncontrollable phenomena like the economic system and the Internet, and since we have begun to seize power over what used to be nature, tulips becoming more beautiful than the original, becoming ‘hypernature’, simulations of nature that never existed,48 why are we not a force of nature ourselves? Biodesign
illustrates that nature and culture do not have to be separated and that they can easily merge, not only to the benefit of humans, but also to that of the whole planet. We just need to give new meaning to the concept of ‘nature’. The idea of a dividing line between nature and culture is a cultural construct and according to Donna Haraway it should be deconstructed. In A Cyborg Manifesto she argues that the division between science fiction and reality is an optical illusion, as cyborgs already exist. They are a merging of fiction and lived experience, in medicine they are couplings of organism and machine and in modern science fiction the cyborgs are everywhere, in the shape of animal and machine at the same time.49 If Haraway would have written her manifesto now, she
would have argued that, because of our dependence of technology (like our phones) we 47 Ibidem.
48 Van Mensvoort and Grievink 2011, 33. 49 Haraway 1991, 149.
would all have become couplings of human and machine. Biodesign would be a coupling of nature and culture, of machine and organism.
Haraway states that the Western traditions of science and politics have made the relation between organism and machine a border war. But not only this relation has been in dialectical conflict, Haraway argues that the whole of Western society is built around dualisms like Descartes division of mind and body. However, due to the upcoming high-tech society cracks are starting to appear. Haraway signals three breakdowns caused by the emergence of high-tech society. The first is the breached boundary between human and animal. This is caused by evolution theory that proves that we are in fact the same as animals. Following Haraway’s thought, there is nothing that successfully proves the division between humans and animals.50
The second breakdown is the distinction between animal-human and machine. During the 20th century machines have become so complex that they have become
“disturbingly lively”. The difference between an organic mind and body and a mechanic mind and body has become blurred and the criteria for what counts as nature are undermined.51
The third breakdown is about the disappearing distinction between the physical and the non-physical. Due to microelectronics the inner mechanics of machines have become invisible. “Our best machines are made of sunshine”, with which Haraway refers to microchips, electromagnetic waves and the abstract bowels of a computer, all has become practically invisible.52
However, Haraway was not specifically aiming for changing the way we think about nature and culture, her goal was to break away from a paternalistic society and the agenda of feminism is paramount in her manifesto. There is a tension between Haraway’s point of view, which is based on letting go of cultural constructs like the social differences between men and women, and Van Mensvoort’s, which aims to make us see the ‘fakeness’ of hypernature and that out-of-control human-made phenomena become nature. This tension, however, is easily explained as Haraway’s radical manifesto was written to argue the cause of feminism, while Van Mensvoort stays objective and neutral in his statements, only demonstrating that our conception of nature has become old-fashioned.
50 Haraway 1991, 151. 51 Ibidem.
It is Van Mensvoort’s conception of nature that is able to shed an interesting light upon the fictional realities that are speculated by biodesign. If our future will be a society in which nature (as something born) and culture will get more and more intertwined with each other, but in which the things made by man start to become a nature on their own, we need the distinction Van Mensvoort makes. Biodesign illustrates how something born can also be something made, and although it should be nature, according to the Roman conception of the term, it is fully under our control. At the same time a rapidly expanding Internet with all its anomalies like viruses has gone beyond our control and could therefor be named ‘nature’. In biodesign’s speculated future nature and culture blend and shift, some created things are developing beyond our control, while born phenomena like plants, mushrooms, even animals and microorganisms are fully controlled for our own and the environments benefit.
This diagram shows the relation between nature and culture, as well as the relation between things born and things made. First, of course, things were born. Then humans started to make things. Now making things is making them to be born. Therefor, ‘born’ is not only connected to nature but also to culture. Some things we made have gotten out of control, therefor we can call it nature and thus ‘made’ is connected with culture and nature. The box in the middle, ‘made to be born’, is connected to all the other four boxes as it is unclear whether we should call this organism born or made and whether it belongs to either culture or nature.
These broken-down distinctions that Haraway signals show similarity with Van Mensvoort’s conception of the shifting border between nature and culture. The
disappeared distinction between human and animal and human-animal and machine are basically one and the same: without the first, the latter would not have been possible. This disappearing distinction can be seen as a characteristic of a society in which the notions of nature and culture are shifting, exactly so as Van Mensvoort states. The fact that machines are more and more like organisms is a sign of the becoming one of nature and culture in the sense of culture implementing natural processes and phenomena in her daily life, just like biodesign does.
The disappearance of the distinction between the physical and the non-physical can be related to microelectronics, but also to the Internet, an invention that rose to power after Haraway had written her manifesto. The Internet has grown into a second world in which we all have our own alter egos. It is a world that has grown beyond our control, the ever expanding realm of internet creates its own reality; realistic in such a way that we have difficulty discerning between what happens in the physical world and the non-physical digital world. It could as well be ‘made of sunshine’.
Both Koert van Mensvoort and Donna Haraway pave the way for biodesign’s speculated futures in which culture and nature blend in order to make life on earth more sustainable. Nature is not anymore merely something that has been born, but rather a phenomenon that has become, or is, beyond our control. Distinctions between machine and organism are fading as life becomes part of the mechanics and as objects of use, which are nowadays still industrially produced, are grown by using living organic material. Thus in the fictional realities speculated about by biodesign a future of blurred lines between nature and culture unfurls. The implementing of living organic material into mechanics, created structures, like the internet, that grow beyond our control and as such becoming natural, the disappearance of distinctions between organisms and machines; all are part of the future in which - what we now still call - ‘nature’ will play a vital role.
This future, however, is not one that is entirely free of risk. A paradox arises when nature becomes culture. Tulips might be entirely under our control, but the newer developments in the manipulation of life bring more risks than mere selective breeding. Biology more and more becomes a design discipline as synthetic biology gains ground. Progress is its goal but when engineering life itself, it is evolution that these designers/engineers are basically doing, which follows different rules than the dragging
and dropping of building blocks of engineering. The problem is that progress in technology has only one focus: humans.53 Our progress is completely anthropocentric;
sustainability aims to preserve our planet, but hiding beneath that honourable agenda is our goal to try to keep the earth habitable for ourselves. We have to realise that “the idea that world is a passive resource for use by active humans is no longer sustainable,”54
Humans have seen themselves as the centrepiece of the earth since the enlightenment and the engineering of life perfectly fits this image. The paradox is thus: synthetic biologists propose a future in which sustainability can be accomplished by creating living machines that harness the processes of nature in which waste becomes a phenomenon of a previous era, in nature, namely, waste does not exist, everything is used until it has completely disappeared, however we do this with an anthropocentric perspective on the world, ignoring the fact that when one engineers life, one has to deal with evolution and evolution responds to its context and not always to our intentions.55
Biology has many complexities that make the engineering of life a rather complicated and risky affair, as human agency over the living design will not be absolute anymore; the living design will have its own agency.
A future in which nature and culture blend and shift has many complications. As our designs come to life we need to acknowledge that a living lamp also needs to be fed and kept alive, however it also needs to be kept domestic and under our control, the last thing a society that has become a hybrid of culture and nature needs is an army of out of control living design. The risks that come with such a future can already be sensed in today’s society. In the next and final chapter of this thesis I will explain how and what we can learn from the future perspectives as proposed by biodesign and how it interlocks with the risks and fears that come with the emerging technology of synthetic biology.
Chapter 3 – The Present in Speculated Futures
In the previous chapters I have tried to make clear that biodesign should be understood as speculative design and how by speculating biodesign creates fictional realities that 53 Ginsberg 2014, 53.
54 Bolt 2013, 3. 55 Ginsberg 2014, 53.
might happen in the future. In the second chapter I explained how these fictional realities all revolve around how nature and culture blend in order to create a more sustainable way of living and producing commodities. The concept of nature in the traditional sense, the way in which we are used to perceive it, will slowly disappear and make place for a new concept of nature; one in which not things that are born are part of nature, but the things that grow autonomously beyond our control. The same counts for the distinctions between the machine and the organism as technology and biology cross boundaries to become a hybrid that lies exactly in between these to fields.
Although biodesign’s speculated fictional realities differ strongly from each other, the myriad concepts and designs all have in common that they propose sustainable ideas and solutions for the future. Another similarity that connects all of these designs is the fact that, although they propose fictional realities for the future, they all have been spawn from a common birthing ground, which is the present. Why is this so? In this chapter I will explain what in today’s society happens that results in more and more design that is speculating about future fictional realities in which sustainability and ecological alternatives are proposed.
It is important to know why this outbreak of ecology and sustainability orientated speculative design is happening these recent times as, although the stories it tells are situated in the (near) future, it can teach us about the present. To clarify this, I would like to compare speculative design with science fiction. Science fiction novels and films that appeared in the sixties are completely different from the ones that are produced today. Not only do these differences tell us about a changing taste in literature and film, but also how we envision the future. I think, when one envisions the future, one can’t escape the present as it leaves clear its mark on the particular future that is imagined. Although this aspect of the present within the proposed future is quite often unnoticed by the very person who ‘invents’ it, it is impossible to avoid as it is all around us and influences us in our thinking. All our imaginative capabilities are founded on what we already know. As the future fictional realities proposed by biodesign all have come forth from the present they can surely teach us about it and tell us what is happening in the world that urges these designer to imagine these alternatives. As in science fiction: authors found their stories on social trends and technological progress, but they cannot create these social structures and technologies out of nothing, there will always be this common ground in the shape of what is happening in the world during the progress of writing the particular
story.56 The same as speculative design has, so has science fiction the present, and
everything that shaped the present, as a starting point. Looking again at the diagram about the future by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (see image 6.) we see that this is easily applicable to science fiction as well, as it starts at the present and then invents a manifold of futures.
The futures of biodesign are founded on the rather destabilising way we treat the planet. According to William Meyers designers meet an urgency to address the degradation of the environment by designing in a different way and by using different materials and ways of production. Biological processes and systems used within nature are harnessed to create alternative designs that embrace nature, instead of using it only for its raw material. The way we treat the planet at the moment, with rising carbon emissions, depleting fossil fuels, disrupting ecosystems and a changing global climate, calls these designers to find new ways to minimise these threats.57 Meyers argues that a
need is emerging to reduce our impact on the environment by using less materials and less energy and to design in such ways that even when the particular object is disposed of it can be of use in another way.58 This need prompts designers to use biodesign to
create optimistic fictional realities in which nature will be enhanced to protect the environment.
Also positive, but more nuanced about the risks of a future of synthetic biology and biodesign are the authors of the book Synthetic Aesthetics. As there was the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century, the Information Revolution during the 20th
century, the 21st century will bring the Biotechnology Revolution in which biology will be
designed or redesigned for the common good.59 These synthetic biologists try to make
genetic engineering more efficient, faster, repeatable and cheaper to lay the foundations for productively working with living material. In order to do this, it is necessary to standardise the matter synthetic biologists are working with, so that in the future all the different ‘bricks’ fit on top of each other like Lego. These ambitions are accompanied by rhetoric of world-saving green technology, as we would no longer need to survive on 56 Daniel Dern“What Science Fiction Writers Have Learned About Predicting The Future of Technology”. CIO, 16-12-2008. 1-07-2014.
<http://www.cio.com/article/2431682/innovation/what-science-fiction-writers-have-learned-about-predicting-the-future-of-technology.html>
57 Meyers 2012, 10. 58 Meyers 2012, 15.
fossil fuels, but rather on organisms that work in a closed ecosystem without any waste.60 Still the field is very young, and ethical complexities arise constantly, but the
desire to industrialise synthetic biology to produce more efficient and at higher speed is apparent. It could dissolve the problems of industrial production, while itself being part of that same field, by taking care of inefficient production, excessive consumption and toxic waste in a biological way.61 There is the danger of synthetic biology falling in the
trap industrial production has set up: synthetic biology, when becoming standardised, could end up doing exactly the same thing as the industrial format prescribes, namely stimulating over-consumption, the production of waste and over-production. Even so it could happen that synthetic biology could simply substitute the existing mechanical machinery with biotechnological processes, but with an outcome as described above. It would be “a disruptive technology that also promises to disrupt nothing.”62
Slavoj Žižek interprets this feeling of unease with our current way of industrial production and the concerns about the status of the environment as a fear for ecological and biogenetic disasters. He explains this within a, somewhat Marxist flavoured, explanation of capitalism and how we should proceed in order to keep our system healthy and running, and how we maybe could even improve it. He states in his article
Nature and its Discontents that global capitalism itself is generating excesses that create
resistance against its own system. These excesses are composed of four strong antagonisms of capitalism. These four antagonisms are the result of an overproducing capitalist society. Žižek asks whether these would be strong enough to stop capitalism from reproducing itself over and over again, as it has been doing these last few centuries in the West.63
These four antagonisms are: Ecology64, private property for so-called ‘intellectual
property’65, the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments
(especially in bio-genetics)66 and new forms of Apartheid, which is comprised of new
walls and slums67.
60 Ginsberg et al. 2104 xi-xiv. 61 Ginsberg et al. 2014, xiv-xvii. 62 Ginsberg et al. 2014, 41-43. 63 Žižek 2008, 37. 64 Žižek 2008, 38. 65 Ibidem. 66 Žižek 2008, 39. 67 Žižek 2008, 40.
Although all four are equally important for understanding our current global society, for this research, and specifically for this chapter, I will only discuss the antagonisms of ecology and the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments. Concerning the first: Žižek argues that there is the looming possibility of an ecological catastrophe that could not so easily be changed by capitalism, although it could easily adapt itself to change this ecological problem in a new field of capitalist investment and competition. This is because this ecological catastrophe would drastically change the very substance capitalism is made of. This substance works in theory through the idea that the egotism of the individual would through competition with other individuals towards the common good. However, now that the ecological threat has become so great, human society might be destroyed before this system starts to work.68 In other words: The degradation of the environment is threatening the basis of
our society, which is capitalism.
The socio-ethical implications of the new techno-scientific developments quite directly involve biogenetic engineering. As the substance of life gets malleable, ethical questions arise and cause the old humanist values on which our society is built to be affected gravely. The problem today is, according to Žižek, that we have to make a choice: Either we refrain from going all the way in science and make sure that it will not dissolve humanity, which Žižek calls “the typically postmodern stance of reticence”, or we dare to go all the way, while risking that the very matter we (and even our mind) are made of will become material for science with the possible consequence of humanity losing itself.
69
These two antagonisms manifest itself in the end of nature. Because of the biogenetic developments nature, both human and inhuman, has dissolved causing nature to be no longer ‘natural’. No longer does it form the background in our lives in the shape of a solid and reliable earth. This changing of nature and fragility of ecology has made nature appear as a feeble mechanism that can explode at any point.70 And here lies
another problem that the techno-scientific developments imply. Namely, when science declares everything, including us humans, ‘natural’, humanity loses its background of
68 Žižek 2008, 38. 69 Žižek 2008, 39. 70 Žižek 2008, 49-50.
nature, thus dissolving the boundaries between humanity and nature resulting in the disappearance of both.71
“Thus the paradox is that there is no “man” only insofar as there is
impenetrable inhuman nature (Heidegger’s “earth”)”72
To expel nature from our future, as Žižek basically advises to do, does not only ensure us to be human, it also “fuels broader, physical disasters.”73 The idea of a non-existing
nature makes us at ease with the idea that commodity, the things we buy that fuel the capitalist system, thus making it a crucial part of our society, has replaced the organism. Trying to get back to the organism would be too nostalgic, too subversive or too religious.74 This would mean that environmentalism would gain ground, but that
conceptions of nature and the natural would get lost.75
If the commodity replaces the organism or, when the so-called Biotechnological Revolution has blurred the lines between nature and culture, organism and commodity have become the same thing we only see the extrinsic value of life. This extrinsic value of life is that it has worth for us. A well-functioning ecosystem needs to be protected because in the end humanity’s survival depends on the wellbeing of this system.76 When
through synthetic biology we have the power to create life from scratch these synthetic organisms will be valued more because of their value to us than because of their intrinsic value, which all life possesses.77 When we start to value life as objects of use, that is,
when we regard the extrinsic value higher than the intrinsic value, the next step would be not just limiting this to synthetic organisms that have been created solely for their purpose to us. All of life could end up like this and this devaluing of life as such would lead to moral decline.78
If the conception of nature dissolves, as Žižek argues, so does our humanity, making us mere objects within a framework that is neither natural nor unnatural. This 71 Žižek 2008, 50. 72 Ibidem. 73 Gal 2012, 128. 74 Gal 2012, 121. 75 Gal 2012, 128. 76 Link 2012, 441. 77 Link 2012, 238-39. 78 Link 2012, 441-442.
train of thought coincides with what Koert van Mensvoort and Donna Haraway argue, namely that the boundaries between nature and culture dissolve, as explained in chapter two. However Van Mensvoort does not express an opinion on the subject other than that we should change our perspective on nature and should shift from the Roman concept (nature as something that is born) to the Greek concept (nature as something that grows autonomously)79. Donna Haraway on the other hand thinks these dissolving boundaries
are necessary, if society carries itself through it accordingly, as the becoming of cyborgs will make any need for discrimination of any kind useless, as we are all incredible sexless mixtures of nature and culture, organism and machine: cyborgs.80 Žižek however states
that with the advances in biogenetic engineering a ‘second nature’ has come into play. This second nature has two meanings. The first is the very literal conception of newly generated nature, either genetic ‘monstrosities’, like a two headed bird, or manipulated organisms that have been specifically designed to help us. The second meaning engages in the results of our scientific research and these becoming autonomous.81 To put it
bluntly: the possibility of humanity creating a monster with a mind and a life of its own, beyond our control. This is somewhat like what Van Mensvoort describes as Next Nature, not something that is ‘born’ but something that is autonomous and acts according to its own free will.82 But there is a difference between second nature and Next Nature, which
lies in the title of the phenomenon. Second nature implies that there is a first nature and that this is a logical second step. Next Nature, on the other hand, also implies that there is an original nature, but not that this is a second step, all the while abandoning the first nature, it simply exists next to it. However, Žižek states that this second conception of ‘second nature’ creates a strong fear for new technologies: the fear for the unforeseen results of nanotechnologies and biogenetic engineering.83 This fear is strongly exploited
by religion. Science has taken over the role of providing security from religion and religion has become one of the places for critical doubt.84 Religion promotes a message of
hope to defend life, but it is fundaments lie in fear. The creation of humanity is the crown of the divine creation and humanity should not take on this role of creating life.85
79 Van Mensvoort and Grievink 2011, 33-34. 80 Haraway 1991, 149-159.
81 Žižek 2008, 51.
82 Van Mensvoort and Grievink 2011, 33-34. 83 Žižek 2008, 51.
84 Žižek 2008, 69-60. 85 Žižek 2008, 52.
Except for the fear promoted and doubt promoted by religion, there is also a distrust in change and progress as every radical change can have the unforeseen result of causing a catastrophe. Ecologists press on that we should change our way of living, treating our planet not as just a source of materials, but as something we should preserve the best we can for the future, as we have the power to shift the entire biosphere out of balance and exactly this power fuels the fear for change. 86
Žižek paints a rather dark picture of fear and terror, distrust and conflict between religion and science. Our current society is grasped by fear for ecological catastrophes and synthetically created organisms that have gone on rampage through our civilised society, destroying everything in its path. The fear for disasters that severely harm or even destroy humanity is in the back of people’s heads.
This fear for disasters can be related to an argument against the emerging technology of synthetic biology that Hans-Jürgen Link addresses: the charge of ‘playing God’. Creating life is traditionally seen as the monopoly of God and humans would display arrogance and hubris if they would try to do the same as this higher being. Link counters this argument with the claim that synthetic biologists do not ‘play’ and that all the risks of the field have already been addressed in debates on biosafety and biosecurity. Still, however, people are not comfortable with the idea of scientists creating organisms in their laboratories and this has to do with change:
“There is a fear that synthetic biology, due to its potential, may contribute to changing common and familiar perceptions of the natural world around us and our place within it that are fundamental to the emotional and moral orientation of society.”87
Link’s analysis of society’s arguments against synthetic biology match Žižek’s statements about the fear for a biogenetic and ecological disaster. Link, however, states that all of them are ‘slippery slope arguments’ and that all amount to the idea that synthetic biology is a Pandora’s Box.88 For one it is questionable whether all the outcome of
synthetic biology will be that bad. Even if the creation of synthetic organisms results in a change of the moral fabric of society, there is no need to assume this change instantaneously includes moral decline. Also it is not sure that when synthetic organisms 86 Žižek 2008, 54.
87 Link 2012, 444. 88 Link 2012, 444.
