Real Fiction

Engineering biology sits at the heart of the next technological revolution: genetics, molecular biology, synthetic biology,

We have been manipulating nature for hundreds of years, will it be different? What would the everyday ‘microbial’ world look like? and who is imagining it?  DIY bio-hackers are already attempting to democratise the technology and the debate around its use – can the design imagination also participate? bring it into the everyday and add to the discussion?

In the last series we asked if imagination and imaginative processes ‘through Design’ can infect reality and be a contributor to substantial processes of change? perhaps this is where it is needed most?

Thursday 2nd May, 6.30pm, Lichthof 2

Bruce Sterling & Markus Schmidt –
Design Fiction/Citizens and the Public Imagination

Bruce Sterling – author, journalist, editor, and critic. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions for books ranging from Ernst Juenger to Jules Verne. He is a contributing editor of WIRED magazine and writes a weblog. 2005 & 2011 he was “Visionary in Residence” Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. 2008 at the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. And Guest Curator for the Share Festival of Digital Art & Culture, Torino, Italy.
 
Dr. Markus Schmidt – founder of Biofaction has a background in electronic engineering, biology and environmental risk assessment. For 10 years he has carried out environmental risk assessment, safety and public perception studies in a number of science and technology fields (GM-crops, gene therapy, nanotechnology, converging technologies, synthetic biology). He also works at the art-science interaction, e.g. producing the Science Film Festival “Bio:Fiction” and the art exhibition “synth-ethic”.
 www.markusschmidt.eu
 
Presentations and Discussions about Design
In cooperation with StudioLab at the Royal College of Art, London and BioFaction, Vienna.