Transnatural Art & Design

___The work of 2012Architects is a strong example of Superuse - a design approach in which clever aesthetics meet the pragmatics of recycling. Instead of designing new cradle-to-cradle products, 2012Architects develop grave-to-cradle methods, that do away with 'waste' as an economical and cultural category. 2012 Architects    

___Drawing on Utility Pets, MyBio and Future Families, Caccavale presents his design practice. Caccavale makes speculative objects in which  abstract issues and ethical questions that surround biotechnology are made tangible. Designer, artist, researcher: Elio Caccavale (UK)

___Koert reports on the latest insights from the Next Nature research - a higly inspiring Dutch initiative that explores and describes how our understanding of nature is changing. NextNature is the nature made by humans, that is more than ever wild and unpredictable. Koert van Mensvoort (NL) / Next Nature

___Material Beliefs is a project of designers and scientists that research the implications of upcoming biomedical and cybernetic technologies. Together with non-specialists they make prototypes of new products and exhibition that bring scientific research from the labs into public space and debate. Designer, researcher, artist:  Tobie Kerridge (UK)

___The research of architect, physicist and sciencefiction author Dr. Rachel Armstrong is aimed at developing metabolic materials to be applied in the built environment. Armstrong foresees a living archtecture, capable of 'healing' the environment. In the workshop Dr. Rachel Armstrong leads the participants along the conceptual and chemical steps of making an in-organic Traube Cell. Starting from current technologies, the participants develop scenario's to implement metabolic materials in the built environment. How can archictecture literally come to live?

___The MudTub is an experimental organic interface that is used to control a computer. By kneading, beating and stirring the mud with their hands, users can play games and engage with simulations and visual tools. Computers can now be controlled in a new, fully organic way. The MudTub explores connections between the organic and digital worlds. Artist: Tom Gerhard (USA)

___Bone tissue grown outside the body will soon be used in plastic surgery – the basic techniques have been tested and proven in laboratories. The promise of such technology has led to speculation about alternative applications. Kerridge’s Biojewellery explores the use of specially grown bone tissue as a symbol of love and commitment in marriage. Bone tissue of soon to be wed couples is cultivated, using hospital equipment, for matching wedding rings. Artist:  Tobie Kerridge (UK)

___Bicycle Built for Two Thousand is a collection of 2088 voices recordings of people who sang the song ‘Daisy Bell’. ‘Daisy Bell’ was the first piece of music to be sung by a computer, the IBM 704, in 1962. Koblin and Massey asked participants to listen to a short sound clip from the song and to imitate it without knowledge of the ultimate goal. Artists: Aaron Koblin /  Daniel Massey (US)

___Prickbot is a tiny, solar energy powered robot designed to run on the light of an overhead projector. This work was prepared for the Arts of the Overhead Festival. The robot, sitting on the projector platform, intermittently makes random rotating movements and pricks tiny holes in a thin aluminium sheet, transforming the projected image slowly from a starry sky into a supernova. The design is based on Mark Tilden’s BEAM technology. Artist: Ralf Schreiber (GER)

___In the performance Hairy Banjo Healy uses her own hair to form the strings of a musical instrument. As Healy’s hair-strings, connected to microphones and speakers, are plucked, the projected image of her face is strengthened. The projection of the artist’s face as her hair is strummed and plucked gives an insight into her emotional state. Viewable for one day only during the opening of Transnatural festival on February 19. Artist: Joan Healy  (IR)

___Meat Market is an interactive sound installation featuring meat that ‘dances’ in response to environmental stimuli. The term ‘meat market’ is an international English expression describing bars/ nightclubs in which there is an overt sexual agenda often expressed by the explicit dress code of patrons. In this work, Healy highlights the prevailing cultural attitudes towards both meat consumption and human sexuality. She explores her doubts about the ethics of eating animals and the way sexuality is presented and appreciated. Artist: Joan Healey  

___The installation Analog Statistics establishes a link between the online presence of Transnatural and the physical exhibition space. Seven plants in a greenhouse give exhibition visitors real-time insight into the cumulative website visitor statistics. A visit to the website, from anywhere in the world, triggers a growth-activating light over a plant that is correlated with the continent from which the site was viewed. The results will provide a foliage visualisation of international visitor numbers. Those who visit the website will see live webcam images of the triggered light and its effects. The European and North American plants will flourish, no doubt, but who will trigger the light over the Antarctica plant and help it grow? Artist: Sander Veenhof

___Superuse.org, "Where recycling meets design,” is an online community of designers, architects and others who areinterested in inventive and aesthetically interesting ways of recycling. The site draws together projects and resources that allow different elements to be located for re-use. Urban scale initiatives and buildings, but also small projects, furniture, interiors are gathered together. Company: 2012 Architects

___Analemma, a new commissioned work from Jelle Feringa for Transnatural, is an inversion of a conventional sundial. It provides a continuous shadow in a perfect circular shape that remains the whole day, all year round. Artist: Jelle Feringa, www.ezct.net

___The MyBio project explores our moral, social, cultural and personal responses to the alien in human biology and potential trans-human creatures, and provokes debate about genetically modified human/animal hybrids. MyBio examines how children learn about the categories of animals and humans, and whether these categories could be otherwise constructed in light of technological developments. Artist/ designer: Elio Caccavale 

___Utility Pets consists of products and services highlighting the ethical implications of xenotransplantation – the transplantation of animal organs into humans. In the near future, it’s possible that pigs will be engineered with the DNA of newborn babies, giving each person their own personal living organ bank. Thesecreatures – known as ‘knock-out pigs’ in science, are unique lifeforms. Utility Pets looks at what domestic objects and arrangements might be necessary were a knock-out pig to live in its human’s house. artist/ designer: Elio Caccavale

___Protocells, such as the Traube Cell, are self-assembling chemical systems with the properties of simple life forms. Dr. Rachel Armstrong developed, with a team of scientists, different types of protocells designed for various applications in urban development, namely ‘living architecture’. Armstrong aims to eventually implement an architecture that makes an autonomous contribution towards healing the environment. Artist / scientist: Dr. Rachel Armstrong

___Transient Landscapes is a sensitive organic structure made of stretched rubber bands – a reactive garden where small changes bring about new forms. Dealing with these structures triggers similar psychological effects in users as real gardening. In her research Housden creates scenes of sensory structures from pure materials. Artists: Lyndsey Housden (NL/ UK) / Yoko Seyama (NL/ JP)

___This first co-operative project between ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae and artist Mike Pelletier is a machine that redefines the surface of the body. Peristalsis – radial contraction of muscles – is used by earthworms to move and by humans for digestion. The skin in Peristaltic Skin is coated with everyday materials to experiment with motion, mass, liquid and colour. Lucy McRae explores the worlds of fashion, technology and the body. With training as a classical ballet dancer and as an architect she is fascinated by spatial expression of the human body. Artists: Lucy McRae (NL/AU) / Mike Pelletier (NL)

___The work of Daniela Bershen is based on process and growth. Loss of feedback control and organic links lead to inevitable conditions that are neither designed nor arbitrary. Bershan is interested in the basic and the mechanical functions of life – those that exist mainly in a state of blind automatism – a starting point for finding new forms. Life is a ‘form’ for Bershan. Artist: Daniela Bershan