This art project is spawned from Genspace, a community-driven bio lab that's in tune with the maker movement, using biotechnology to tinker and experiment. "Stranger Visions" takes left behind strands of hair found in public spaces and recreates physical representations of the owners through DNA extraction. Although this project feels very familiar, as it parallels with some of the propositions we made for our DNA mapping brief for Nokia last year, I'm more interested in the debate that it's sparking about privacy invasion and genetic profiling. I think it's an interesting reaction from a society that portrays endless amounts of identifiable personal information on social networks and GPS tracking devices so casually.
I'm also intrigued by the effects that exposure to biotechnology that initiatives like Genspace is providing might have on us culturally. Community based, open-sourced biotechnology could be the cousin to the Arduino based maker movement. Just as much as the MySpace gave rise to amateur musicians, YouTube gave rise to amateur videographers, and then Arduino gave rise to amateur hackers, could bio spaces like this see the next influx of DIY biological engineers?
Alive / En Vie, a Paris-based exhibition, seems to support the idea of bio-exploration as the next frontier in the art and design world. It's an interesting meld of two disciplines: science and art, the logical and the romantic, the literal and the metaphorical. In the way that fiction and speculation can transform the way we design for the future, perhaps artists are the fiction to science's design.
Here are some personal favourites from Alive / En Vie:
HORTUS. PARIS. The Machinic Harvest
A proto-garden exploring the notion of self-sufficiency and self-regulation
Bio Computation
Programming bacteria to create sustainable, flexible materials
Algaerium BioPrinter
A prototype for printing colors and even superfood nutrients using algae
