The term “designer babies” refers to the attempt to give a baby a specific ability or appearance by genetically modifying the fertilized egg before birth. Of course, there are several ethical issues involved in artificially altering life before birth, and the practice will inevitably be criticized. However, prenatal diagnosis to prevent certain genetic diseases is underway, and cryopreserved sperm and eggs can be grown as fertilized eggs in test tubes. Considering these examples, it is not surprising that the idea of “designing” a child before birth has appeared.

But what does “design” mean in this case? Even if not related to a prenatal human being, the activity of designing life is now rapidly gaining attention, with both expectations and criticisms (or fears) mixed in. This is symbolized by the emergence of the fields of bioart and biodesign. “Bioart” refers to expressions and artworks that address the relationship between science and technology and life phenomena or that incorporate biological techniques as a means of expression while taking a conscious attitude toward the accelerated progress of life science since the 20th century. Artists such as Stelarc and Orlan, who have submitted performances and processes in which they altered their own bodies since the 1980s, can be regarded as the pioneers, but more recently, Eduardo Kac’s “GFP Bunny” (2000–) has been a turning point in this trend. This was a critical attempt to create an organism that glows green under certain conditions by incorporating green fluorescent protein obtained from a jellyfish into the genes of an albino rabbit. Since then, several other works have appeared that are related to life sciences. On the institutional side, many places around the world will also become hubs for bio-art, such as SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia and metaPhorest at Waseda University. A bio-food lab was also established at the Faculty of Design, Kyushu University in 2019.

However, in the field of design, which is not only a means of expression but also often aims at problem-solving and social implementation, items from life and nature have historically been adopted as models to be imitated. If we include the ancient study of nature, which focused on the rhythm and harmony of life, we can consider as its source the philosophical traditions of Aristotle and Vitruvius in antiquity, which developed consideration of the forms of nature, and the theory and practice of Leonardo da Vinci in the Renaissance, which led to Goethe in the early modern period. In the modern era, the doctrine for explaining the principles of nature shifted from religion to science and mechanistic perceptions prevailed, but the traditions of animism and organic principles flourished, albeit in a latent way, in the practice of art and design concerning life.

William Meyers, who published BioDesign (MoMA, 2012) and BioArt (Thames & Hudson, 2015; translated in Japanese 2016), summarized the relationship between design and nature since the early modern period in the former book as “from physics to life science.” If we assume that bio-design in the 20th century developed mainly in the field of architecture, from the decorative patterns of Art Nouveau to Bauhaus and modernist architecture, the Metabolism movement in postwar Japan, and computational design by Frank Gehry, Greg Lynn, and others, then from the 1970s to the present, there has been a growing awareness of environmental issues. Specifically, the work of Richard Buckminster Fuller, Victor Papanek, and others can be cited as sharing a sense of crisis about the enormous impact of industrial design products on the natural environment. Additionally, the role of the designer went beyond simply creating products to include the collection of resources, forms of labor, and the creation of systems of distribution and consumption in the marketplace, in other words, the environment itself.

Beyond that, the field of design is rapidly approaching that of biology, where life is the object of analysis, and designers are naturally (re)focusing on ecosystems that make it possible to harmonize energy and materials in a unique way. This is also evident in the cases such as “biomimicry,” in which users adopt the mechanisms of living organisms in nature, speculative design, which takes a critical stance toward the status quo, and more recently, digital fabrication technology, which uses 3D printers to reproduce the biological mechanisms of insects and other organisms. A more emblematic example is the work of Hendrik Jonkers and his colleagues at the Delft University of Technology, who are working on the practical application of a self-healing concrete material that uses bacteria activated by water and oxygen to penetrate cracks. These attempts are not limited to surface design but may also form the practice of bio-design that extends from the cellular and molecular level to the ecosystem of resource circulation.

In parallel with these trends, the bioart movement has tended to problematize the excessive progress and ethical aspects of life science, as mentioned above. However, Hideo Iwasaki, a biologist and artist who organizes metaPhorest, is developing activities that place equal importance on humanities and social science methods that examine the process of sensing and experiencing what humans consider to be life. In the backdrop of these activities, there is a new trend in life science called synthetic biology. Since the latter half of the last century, molecular biology, which has promoted the elucidation of DNA as a resource of biological information, has evolved into systems biology, which promotes top-down analysis of biological phenomena from a scientific perspective, and synthetic biology, which pursues bottom-up construction from an engineering perspective. In this way, the life sciences are also moving toward a design process of elucidating life by creating it, and there is a need to reexamine the question of what constitutes life.

In this way, the potential of bioart and design can be sought at the intersection of the practice of science on life and the historical accumulation of design and art. In turn, this will lead us to rethink the word “art” in its original meaning, that is, not only art in the narrow sense, but also human technology in general (Ars) in confrontation with nature. In fact, it is not limited to the latest scientific findings or the reproductive activities mentioned above, but those of us who dig up the soil for farming or gardening, or who frequently drink sake and wine, or eat cheese, soy sauce, fermented soybeans, pickles, and other products of microbial fermentation, must have practiced biodesign in the culture we have cultivated, not to mention the original meaning of the word “culture.” In fact, this focus on bioart/design practice coincides with the recent development of multispecies anthropology, which seeks to overcome anthropocentrism by focusing on the entanglement of human and non-human life. In other words, the problems posed by bioart/design are how to mediate between life (nature) and technology (artificiality) without limiting them to human interests and activities.

(MASUDA Nobuhiro)

Related Classes

Design Future Course Design Aesthetics

Design Future Course Bio Art and Design

References

• Katz, Sandor E. (2020), Fermentation As Metaphor, Chelsea Green Pub Co.（ドミニク・チェン監修（2021）『メタファーとしての発酵 』オライリージャパン）
• Myers, William (2015) Bio Art: Altered Realities, Thames & Hudson.（ウィリアム・マイヤーズ（2016）『バイオアート バイオテクノロジーは未来を救うのか』BNN新社）
• 岩崎秀雄（2013）『〈生命〉とは何だろうか 表現する生物学、思考する芸術』講談社現代新書
• 奥野克巳、近藤祉秋、ナターシャ・ファイン編（2021）『モア・ザン・ヒューマン マルチスピーシーズ人類学と環境人文学』以文社