Difference between revisions of "DesignWorkshop2010"

Revision as of 08:50, 16 June 2010

This page documents the art/design workshop run by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King with the ArtScienceBangalore iGEM team. We've joined the team for a week to help the team generating ideas for iGEM 2010 (James will be here longer). This week, we're exploring the role of art and design in synthetic biology and iGEM, and trying to generate new ideas about what this contribution might be!

Monday 14th June

Reverse Engineering Workshop

Designing for the Rest

Tuesday 15th June

Jugaad Biology

Jugaad vs. Hack

"Jugaad is a survival tactic, whereas a hack is an intellectual art form; i.e. Jugaad is the wile of the poor, and hack the pastime of the affluent cerebral. Jugaad is a hack to get around or deal with a lack of or limited resources, and has a class component to it - jugaad are things poor but clever people do to make the most of the resources they have. They do what they need to do, without regard to what is supposed to be possible."

A new paper by Maureen O'Malley at Exeter University describes synbio as a 'kludge': Making Knowledge in Synthetic Biology: Design Meets Kludge. A kludge is an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose - it's a bit like jugaad, a new word James and I learnt today. We watched Kempinski, a mysterious science fiction short. Shot as a documentary, Kempinski is an animist future somewhere in Africa populated by strip-lights, in a version of the present.

This morning, we looked at the ways synbio might be hacked in unexpected ways. In groups of three, the team selected an iGEM project from any of the competition years, imagining the unexpected, unintended uses of this technology.

- Are we in the future, the present (or even the past)? - How is it being used in an unexpected context or manner? - How has it been hacked? - Who is using it? - Is it for a good or a bad purpose?

Presenting your ideas as a news program, tell us the story of how a group of people are using this technology in a completely unexpected way. What are the implications?

iGEA Task What is the iGEA competition - the International Genetically Engineered Art Competition? What categories are there? What prizes can be won? How do people communicate their work? What might be disqualified from entering?

Wednesday 16th June

iGEA 2010 - The International Genetically Engineered Art competition.

iGEM started as class at MIT in 2003, evolving into an international competition. Today at Srishti we're launching iGEA, the art and design sibling of iGEM.

Powered by synthetic biology, iGEA explores how this emerging technology can be used for art and design purposes.

DNA parts submitted by teams to the Parts Gallery - an Open Source biological media library - may be used in new art and design works, and even by scientists...

We are an open source platform created to enable artists and designers to find new uses for synbio, to create new discourse about the science, and for implementing and exhibiting your creative projects at the interface of art and science.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon designing the new competition, the awards and rules.

The Awards

• Best Ecosystem
• Best New Emotion
• Best Social Critique
• Best Pop-Culture
• Shooting Star (short-lived, burning bright)
• Remix Culture

• GRAND PRIZE: Gestalt Award

• Critics Choice for Visual Aesthetics
• Genetic Raspberry Award

Today, we're running the inaugural iGEA with 3 teams.

The competition rules:

What does your organism do, how did you make it, what is its impact, why does it fit in the category, what new parts did you have to make?

Make an art/science poster for your iGEA entry (what is an art/science poster?).

To describe your project, you could also make artifacts, images, a film, a performance or a powerpoint to use as props in your presentation.

At the end of the day, we’ll be holding the iGEA competition presentations.

Prizes will be awarded; the Gestalt Award Winner will present their iGEA project at the National Centre for Biological Sciences tomorrow!

Good Luck!