The mood of biological modernism

The creative genius of Silke Sieler here has done a magnificent job if he intended to abstractly capture the mood of what I call 'biological modernism', a new paradigm for technology development based on how natural ecologies perfectly blend together form, interaction, and function.



The movie brought about in me a feeling of being encapsulated inside a purified future cell where perfect harmony and order rules in perfect conjunction with the chaos and messiness of natural systems. In the trust, humility and peace this can generate then, only pure, embodied being could ultimately remain.

X-rays from a cyborg future

Here is a little clip, created by Danny Warner, that might bring to your awareness that the merging of our biological body and technological environment is in the end going to be a glorious process. So have a moment of rest and relaxation, click that triangle, and always, always watch fullscreen.

Mercedes goes bionic

Great stuff from the Mercedes Benz design department. Apparently they have been working on the development of an entirely new form language, and it is promising. The free and flowing forms they came up with are not just sculptures arisen from the unbound human imagination, but based on natural structures that have optimized themselves over many generations. As a result, the design language has become extremely beautiful, and it simply seems to 'fit' to Mercedes-Benz. Where modernism has mainly resulted in mass-produced 'soulless' objects, including biological processes into it may bring this back and make the ultimate union of form and function. When humanity for a moment thought that modernism took away all individuality, biology is here to show us how we can be united and individuated at the same time.

It seems that Mercedes is looking for a name for this language -that really is much more than a language- as they call it 'Sculpture Aesthetics No. 2'. I would suggest 'biological modernism' as the umbrella term for this class of design -which, again, is much more than just a class or style of design but more like a new paradigm. Take a look at their promo video, and some pictures of the prototype, sculptures, and sketches they made.

Sustainable floating cities

Most of the Western cities have just emerged bit by bit, which can cause quite the inefficiencies in a changed, high-paced and interconnected world. Other cities have been based on a grid-like system which works as a system for living but completely takes the 'soul' out of a city. Then there are a few cities that have been based on a different kind of plan, as a more artistic approach, such as the city of Brasilia as designed by Oscar Niemeyer. This has turned out to be quite a failure as it was not anticipated how the people would actually live there.

Vincent Callebaut has another idea, which is also based on a preconceived plan mostly, yet it's a piece of intelligent, somewhat holistic and environmentally responsible thinking. And the structure he proposes is extremely beautiful too. His concept is to create floating cities along the coastline that somewhat look like Lilypads. Each of the cities can provide residence to 50.000 people, which could be people that have lost their home in a traditional city through a natural disaster. Beside aesthetics the unique aspect of these cities is that they have zero emissions, and even process carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This, the Belgian architect envisions, can be reached through using energy from the sun, the wind, from biomass, and from the tidal waves.

I like the thinking and the design, and I think this can work if we can get the money together. Dubai, Shanghai, Hong Kong, anyone?

Life inside a cell animated

This is what the common human being needs; a visually interesting depiction of how a cell works, not with words and science, but pure visuals. It is stunning, and it's hard to imagine that every cell of our bodies is as complex and coordinated as a universe, but this does give us a better idea of the incredible system that our body is. The molecules you see are modelled after the structure of real molecules, although a lot of assumptions had to be made. But more important than scientific accuracy is how it can open the mind of the common human being.

Watch the animation here:



You can also watch the animation's predecessor, that has already been featured on this blog, here:

Incredible close ups of eyes

Wired.com recently posted some incredible close-ups of insect eyes, not to be missed. I hope such imagery can stop people's linguistic minds from speciesistically seeing insects merely as 'bugs'. If you develop the perceptual power to increasingly see, with full focus, the direct beauty in the physicality of insect bodies, you may start to view of them more as equals.

Houses made of meat

Brooklyn-based architect Mitchell Joachim has a few good ideas about future housing. One is about growing houses from plants by using scaffolding. The other is a bit more radical. Joachim intends to build houses from deposited cell matter, using different cell types for different functions. In other words, he literally wants to create houses as if they were living organisms made of meat, skin, fat, and muscles.

Transparent dead animals

Aesthetics is how science can really speak to people. By showing a world that's more beautiful than as we know it, people can also emotionally become interested in science.

Japanese scientists have created a method to render the flesh of a dead animal transparent, and at the same time colorize the bones. Now I don't know if there is a direct practical effect, since their website is written in Japanese. But beautiful and interesting it sure is.

Also watch the movie to really get the sense that the entire body is actually still there.

digital flower art by Macoto Murayama

Check out Macoto Murayama's ethereal illustrations of flowers that seem to come straight out of Avatar. His process is remarkably craft-loaded: he uses a scalpel to dissect flowers, then gets to the microscope, photographs and sketches to digitally reproduce the flower in 3D, from which the final rendering is created. My, he could be the Ernst Haeckel of the 21st century.

So this is what can happen when plants go digital. These are definitely images that don't need to be described; you need to leave language behind and just look at it. Just look at it.

peripetics

This animation is titled "Peripetics or The installation of an irreversible axis on a dynamic timeline" and was created by Zeitguised. A beautifully abstract expressive way to depict dynamic physical systems. Especially the breathing gestalt at the end of the movie is interesting to see. If together with our systems we can come to live in a harmonious symbiotic rhythm, we can truly come to feel one with them and surpass the alienation we feel in our current lifeworlds.

life inside a tumor

Medical animations never cease to be mind-bendingly stunning. Watch this a second time, and imagine what you see to be a posthuman city.

the alien within us

"If the individual cannot take the realness, aliveness, autonomy, and identity of himself and others for granted, then he has to become absorbed in contriving ways of trying to be real, of keeping himself or others alive, of preserving his identity, in efforts, as he will often put it, to prevent himself losing his self." R.D. Laing (1965), The Divided Self.

In a world where we finally realize that madness is just a convention, created by a society that itself can be characterized by lunacy, people will feel freed to morph their bodies according to their mental self-image. For your friday night transhumanist flavours, here's the Museum of the Mad, the Macabre, and the Marvelous, featuring some fictitious creatures blurring the boundaries between the fleshly and the mechanical:



"Sir Gustav von Cancertonus [...] has disassociated feelings towards humans and feels closer along side the crustacean family. He underwent an unorthodox procedure to correct his perceived shortcomings."



"The hoax [...]. A crude and tasteless look into the imagination of man, discovered in an Old Antique Shoppe where it was used as a conversation piece."



"Aerwig Mechanism. [...] An alkaline powered amalgamation of functioning pocket watch components, tar paper, and porcelain doll parts."



"Cupid papillon ansestrous. [...] The cupid fly was found in a small remote village stricken by disease. Some suggest flies laid eggs in the departed and genes were crossed resulting in a hybrid."

Before we have found an extra-terrestrial civilization, we will probably already have become the aliens we used to project outside of us.

future fossils

Here's some astonishing work by Korean artist Choe U Ram, who makes these robots with an extraordinary organic quality and subtlety of movement to them. It's almost better than nature.

rise of the river robots

There we go, robot armies are already being developed, but now our seas and rivers are also going to be the homes of robots with autonomous navigation capabilities. Apparently, British scientists want to release robots that resemble fish into the sea near Spain. These machines would be able to detect pollution, so basically it's a moving sensor with the mask of a sophisticated organism.

This way, robots are again a quick and easy solution to something that should be tackled preventively. Throw in some technology, that'll do. Sure. It's adding up quickly if you ask me. I feel that in a way, robots could become the punishment we create for ourselves because we can't live in tune with our world as a whole. We try to stick patch after patch onto nature, but we really need to look inside of ourselves and learn to accept it with all its unpredictabilities, become open-minded to the all-transcendent wisdom pervading it, and with our newly acquired consciousness try to uplift it by catalyzing its own flow.

a frappuccino fresh from the phone

Along these lines, wouldn't it be interesting if we had a technology that would be our perfect biological complement, that would nourish itself with our waste products, and produce waste that we could use as food? Think of a robot that would eat our fecals, drink our urine, and in turn produce, say, vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles, while being perfectly happy about all that. I think something like this might be possible, and that there is no inherently decreased evolutionary quality to things we consider to be waste products. Only from our own biological frame of reference this is so, but if we can create other forms of life than merely carbon-based ones, I think we could surely have a biological complement.

how giant crabs will save us

Experts Agree Giant, Razor-Clawed Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat

This is the best parody on techno-progressivism I have ever seen.

'Metamorphoses' at Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris

If you happen to be in or near Paris and moreover, you are drawn to transhumanist ideas, make sure to give Espace Louis Vuitton at the Champs Elysees a visit. You are taken to the top floor by a pitch black elevator where 10 Korean artists show their visions on how our identities are changing concerning our societies, our bodies, and our architectures. These modern works are definitely a splendid complement to all the centuries old art of, say, the Louvre, and in an often playful or humorous way put you back into the contemporary world and the issues we face today.

Hyungkoo Lee seems to want to prepare us for a world where even on a biological level we cannot distinguish anymore between what is determined for us by evolution, and what is created by us. She shows skeletons of cartoon characters that are so realistic that suddenly a Roger Rabbit world does not seem that far off. We seem indeed to be living in an era where the simulations that used to be bounded to the realm of representation are about to be biologized. If cartoon character and biological entity can blend into a "Homo Animatus", what then constitutes a living being? Is everything that seems alive not already alive? Is every recognition of a living being not merely a transitory self-projection arising out of an existential insecurity that makes us look for patterns with which we can identify and stabilize a self that is inherently fragile in a self-induced illusionary structure constituted by things we posit as distinct from us? Is the distinction between life and death not merely the result of narrow-mindedness? So, are we not already dead as much as we are alive? I think you already know my answer.



Another interesting work is a giant tornado-like shape composed of miniature translucent human figurines created by Do Ho Suh. This colorful structure might signify how we all need to act together, as one mind, but all playing a slightly different, unique role. A hominized atmosphere, transformed by man, in harmony with human values and needs, what a beautiful idea that is. Maybe the only way to reconnect with the nature we were once so immanently immersed in is to become it.

The exhibition will be open until August 23rd, 2009. Here's the address:

Espace Louis Vuitton
60, rue de Bassano/101 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, 75008 Paris.
Tél: 01 53 57 52 03

the frustrated beasts of today

Now what are the real animals of today? This interesting ad for a campaign by Rainforest Foundation Oro Verde is striking in showing how biology is changing nowadays.

Suddenly you start viewing these technological monsters in a human way, portraying destructive behaviour because of an inner frustration for not having a nice, natural environment of their own. Every time we anthropo- or zoomorphize objects (including perceptual patterns we classify as people and animals themselves!), it's nothing but a projection anyway, rendering this view of technology quite legitimate I think. The machines could also be seen as a delusional, delirious form of predators, trying to eat everything without finding anything they can digest.

And yes, that six-legged insectoid crane exists. It's developed by John Deere. The future of mobility technology will probably move more and more towards walkers to get us out of our rigid, linear, gridlike infrastructure.

Art Forms of Nature

In 1904, biologist Ernst Haeckel published his work 'Art Forms of Nature', which contains 100 of among the most beautiful illustrations of natural forms, from monocellular amoebas to corals to bat heads. The good thing is: it is now freely available as a download, and however it is the original German version, only the opportunity of looking at the wonderful illustrations is well worth the 260 Mb of disk space it takes.

Here is the link to the download: Ernst Haeckel - Kunstformen Der Natur.

At the time it was published, Haeckel's work served to inspire designers, and the Art Nouveau movement. I hope that it at this time, the scope of design practice being in great expansion, can once again inspire designers with the beauty of evolution.

The Flowers have Eyes

Here's some visual nourishment for the true fetishist of everything about biological technology, or  technological biology, whatever. I still am looking for a good term for this. I kind of like McLuhan's term 'hominization of the planet' (from 'The Global Village', 1989). Maybe George W. Bush would rather use 'planetary humanification'. Couldn't resist mentioning him at least once on the blog, excuse me.