The speculative garden explores the space in terms of interrelationships between humans and more-than-humans. The garden, a space produced and needed by (wo)man for centuries, is referred to as the mirror of society that entangles nodes of power and control.
The concept of the creating a garden with lichens is a sensorial exhibition of how it has a spatial meaning, it creates networks between humans, nature and computational systems such as computers, sensors, the internet, because it becomes crucial to consider the future of symbiosis with the technological object, the more-than-human and the environment. Data from the environment, captures of images and sounds from nature are collected. They are all connected through computer and sensors and they start to develop a space where all this information would be translated and represented.
The feedbacks and instances from the physical to the digital space, making an intangible figure of nature in the so called "Digital Era" and represented in the garden.
Motivation While the humble act of adorning one’s body with cloth began as a means of protection from the external environment, clothes transformed into evocative objects that convey complex social rituals. Today, clothes express ideas about identity, class, politics and they can be seen as manifestations of global systems of production. Additionally, the use of animal hides for cloth can be seen as an expression of our attitudes toward the animal Other.
While the humble act of adorning one’s body with cloth began as a means of protection from the external environment, clothes transformed into materials to show the attitude. Today, clothes express ideas about identity, class, politics and they can be seen as manifestations of global systems of production.
Plan
Victimless Leather explores the future consequences and potentials of using tissue engineering to develop consumer products. Considering all of the material waste involved, Victimless Leather problematises the idea that lab-grown materials can ever lad to a truly ‘victimless utopia’.
Execution
This leather is cultured inside a custom-made perfusion chamber, inspired by the organ perfusion pump originally designed by Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh. The chamber has an automated system which drips into the polymers and feeds the cells with a nutrient media.
The high consuming, disposable culture brought on by the Industrial Revolution has led to the fast production of non-renewable composite materials such as plastics, which are now a significant part of landfills and oceans. As a result, interest in biomaterials for industrial applications is growing fast and mycelium is one the most studied one.
In this research, mycelium PLA is produced and with the new fabrication methodology and then the aim was to generate new and sophisticated aesthetic possibilities for myco-composite objects, by observing and simulating the behaviour of mycelium in various substrates.
To explore this aspects of biodegradable and digital fabrication methods, a table prototype was created.