The current state of the cyborg

This is an excellent mini-documentary to give you an idea of the current possibilities in bionic enhancement of the human body. It features prosthetic eyes, arms, legs, even fins, all for the celebration of the release of the new Deus Ex game "Human Revolution," and transhumanism in general.

We are indeed entering an era where modifying our own body is becoming more accessible and acceptable. To think that we're all going to have prosthetic body parts is an exaggeration though. That could be based on the idea that technology will somehow 'save' or improve us, or just on an attachment to new technologies. Of course for people who lost a capability of their natural body such technologies are wonderful, plus they open up new exciting and interesting niches for embodied human explorations and operations. But all in all, if we are to physically alter our bodies for the sake of transgressive exploration -not unlike many people are currently doing through plastic surgery, we should as well try to become more deeply connected to that body. We might be able to get beyond seeing it mostly as a physical thing, and discover an energy, an underlying intelligence. Technological modifications like shown in the movie might be very interesting and promising, but they may also tend to blind us from a deeper connection with our own embodiment.

Biological architecture

Here's a little collection of conceptual architecture that shows a shift towards holistic design thinking on both the macro- and the microscale. This kind of work definitely brings a new aesthetic into the world while opening up our minds to the idea that what we are creating as humans might not be that far off in quality from what the natural world has been creating all those millions of years, even that maybe our work lies in line with that process itself. And whereas surely this approach to design is not what will 'save humanity' as it might account mostly for our physical needs, but not for our complete scope of psychical needs, it surely is a wonderful step in the ascent of humankind.



Vincent Callebaut has created a far-future concept for airships fueled by a specific type of seaweed. These organisms would produce not oxygen but dihydrogen through photosynthesis, hence the name of the concept 'Hydrogenase'. Vincent envisions these 400-meter tall ships to not only function as passenger transportation, but also as floating buildings such as hospitals. They would be able to move at 175km/h by means of twenty wind propellors. The ships would furthermore be provided with an intelligent skin that incorporates nano-technologies to make it self-cleaning and self-repairing.



Yheu-Shen Chua has re-envisioned the Hoover dam to be a highly organic and open structure that actually makes transparent the waterflow and the ecology within the water. It would incorporate a bridge, a gallery, and a vertical aquarium.




If it's up to the French guys who created the 'Flat Tower' concept, a global-minded humanity makes no big deal of who owns what piece of land. Instead of building vertically to create more living spaces in the dense urban environment, they take a different approach: open and organic horizontal structures that dome the underlying cityscape. This might be very interesting for hot parts of the world, where such a structure could convert a large amount of sunlight into energy, and provide the city with more shadow area.



The concept skyscraper 'Hydra' is envisioned to provide energy to its inhabitants by means of a lightweight grapheme exoskeleton. This structure would attract lightning bolts which could then charge several mega-batteries.




Finally, here's a concept from the nineties by Eugene Tsui for a sustainable city built in the sea. Of special interest is the structure of the building, which is modeled after the human spine in order to direct and disperse stresses and strains. It would also have a "Living Machine" module that employs marine organisms to transform sea water into drinking water.

By the way, there's an excellent Zaha exhibition in Paris until October 30th. You can find it in a special pavilion just outside the Institut du Monde Arabe. It shows some of Zaha's projects, some experimental work, her working process and underlying design philosophy. I've visited myself and overall, it gives you a good feel of what organic and bio-inspired architecture can become.

A sofa that follows your body

Swiss designer Alexander Rehn has created the 'Cay Sofa', a piece of furniture that is definitely iconic for an age of increasing unpredictability and complexity. This sofa invites us to relax our bodies but remain in a state of active exploration and body awareness. It gets us out of our minds and into the world. It also gets us out of habitually taking on certain poses when we use furniture items, but instead has us open up and see what happens, while we enjoy the sensations of the current moment.

It's not perfect yet, but it's definitely a step towards a more free, open, and dynamic world of technology. Watch the video for a better impression:

Fitbot, a robot that tries on clothes for you before you buy

Fits.me has come up with a new prototype of their robotic manikin, or 'FitBot', for virtual dressing rooms. It allows people who buy their clothes on the web to preview what the garments would look like on their own body. You enter the various sizes of your body into the website, and it will return to you an image of the FitBot with those sizes, wearing the item you selected.

This appears to be a very complicated system for this purpose, especially when you consider the enormous amount -hundreds if not thousands- of variations that the FitBot needs to be photographed in for each piece of clothing. But it's worth it: the sales to new customers of clothes retailer Hawes and Curtis have gone up by an impressive 57%.



The ideal technology here would of course be to see a fully robotic or at least a very advanced software version of yourself in a fitting room, linked to the movements of your own body. Who knows, maybe we will have our first experience in a virtual body in the consumerist context of shopping. But it seems to be unavoidable that one day it's going to be quite common to have virtual out of body experiences during the activities of everyday life.

Here is a video that shows the prototype in action:

Water taps made of water

This is some excellent promotional material for Kohler, the famous faucet manufacturer. It is based on the theme of blurring the boundary between the solid and the liquid, which we usually don't get exposed to very often.

Bruce Pollock's cosmic paintings

Bruce Pollock is a Philadelphian artist who tries to bring people an experience of infinity through his paintings. He translates microscopic and macroscopic patterns and principles onto his canvases, and manages to create very vibrant and captivating compositions by letting a painting emerge from an inner logic that Pollock explicates over time through his brush strokes.

Each painting uses a limited set of elements and ordering principles to give rise to a perception of a living three-dimensional realm. Here, no object is separated from another object, and the purpose of the object is to transcend its, say, 'it-ness', and start co-creating the whole. As an observer then, we are given the opportunity to not seek something individuated in these paintings, but to stop pointing the mind to any particular object, and have ourselves connect viscerally to what we see. From this visceral experience then, our mind is invited to contemplate more abstract notions such as the order of the cosmos, and our individuated consciousness within that order.

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.