SYM(MICRO)BIOTICS, 2014
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosted an exhibition of biotechnology devices and innovations from the future, each revealing a symbiotic relationship we could have with synthetic microorganisms as parts of our day to day lives in 2050. These representative artifacts, specimens and scientific models were the results of a futuring workshop held by The Extrapolation Factory as part of the 2014 Hopscotch Design Festival in Raleigh, NC.
Students from NC State College of Design and Hopscotch attendees were invited to explore a database of recent scientific developments relating to synthetic biology and biotechnology. Participants used these references to inspire quotidian applications for microorganisms, and then designed artifacts to visualize new symbiotic relationships between people and their microbes.
Among the items being exhibited is a tool for harvesting cat gut-microbes that cause personality changes in humans, a model of a synthetic marine bacteria which filters gold nanoparticles from seawater, and a biosensor which lives in the sewer system and provides visible health snapshots of a city’s metagenomic makeup.
See more documentation on flickr.