Other Biological Futures | Issue 4, Journal of Design & Science. Edited by Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Natsai Audrey Chieza in collaboration with MIT Media Lab and MIT Press. Photo by Justinas Vilutis.

Other Biological Futures

MIT Media Lab, MIT Press
2018

Issue 4 of the Journal of Design and Science (JoDS), “Other Biological Futures” looks at biodesign, the design of, with, or from biology.

Biodesign is being promoted by scientists and designers as an ecological remedy, a technological challenge, an economic opportunity, and a manufacturing and industrial revolution. Over the last decade, artist Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, and designer Natsai Audrey Chieza, have been exploring the design of living matter and its potential implications. As co-editors of Issue 4 of the Journal of Design and Science (JoDS), “Other Biological Futures”, they identify difficulties they see emerging in the evolving practice of biodesign, and open up new directions for investigation. Together they ask whether biodesign in practice really can make things better, and what that might look like. Initiating conversations between scientists, designers, curators, artists, bioengineers, activists, historians, and more, all who are somehow “other” to each other, the issue reveals complex issues in biodesign around the world.

These conversations will be released serially and are available to read online through JoDS. Instigating an open dialogue about different kinds of colonisation in biodesign, raising ethical issues on the design of living matter and, hopefully, reaching beyond established networks and cultures to encourage the imagination of “other biological futures”, this is a conversation you are invited to expand upon.

Read the editorial by Daisy and Natsai on Other Biological Futures here.

“Adopting this more social rather than technological perspective on biodesign allows us to include within it a wide range of activities and people, from traditional to contemporary processes that use low-tech or high-tech methods, practiced by scientists to farmers in labs, factories, studios, and homes. Two questions unite their work: “Can biology do this better?” And, “How will using biology change things for the good?” This approach provokes thinking about what “good” biodesign might look like, and what other kinds of potential biological futures could exist, which we hope this issue begins to sketch out.” – Editorial by Dr. Daisy Alexandra Ginsberg and Natsai Audrey Chieza.

Other Biological Futures | Issue 4, Journal of Design & Science. Edited by Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Natsai Audrey Chieza in collaboration with MIT Media Lab and MIT Press. Photo by Justinas Vilutis.

The Journal of Design and Science (JoDS), a joint venture of the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Press, forges new connections between science and design, breaking down the barriers between traditional academic disciplines in the process. Targeting readers with open, curious minds, JoDS explores timely, controversial topics in science, design, and society with a particular focus on the nuanced interactions among them. Learn more about JoDS.

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