Transnatural Art & Design

___Transnatural festival showcases future scenarios & innovation from the creative industry and business. The programme focuses on up-and-coming technology that can support, as opposed to desecrate,the natural world and ecological wealth. A multi-faceted mixture of national and international creators, thinkers and businesses includes leading examples and work from R&D labs, studios and research institutes. The participants showcased their work at the NEMO Science Center to a wide public audience. The theme for the third festivals is The state of Autonomy. More systems and things are getting autonomous through technology, and don't need to be guided or steered anymore. Future cars don't need a driver and the stock market exchange is run by algorithms already. How can we apply our technological knowledge without infringing upon nature? How far can we push the limits and how can we act within them? The festival shows autonomous beings, systems, processes, and innovative materials that are able to – be they organic, man-made or hybrid – act independently. We aslo explore generative systems, new ways to harvest energy and food,  and the use of existing sources and materials. For more information, the festival website: www.transnatural.nl 

___Policing Genes speculates that amateurs and criminals also can use genetically modified plants. For example innocent looking plants can produce drugs and medicine. In Policing Genes the bees could act in this problem as animal cops. Artist/ Designer: Thomas Thwaites

___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?

___Nature has always been complete, and yet it is never finished. Technology can expand nature   infinitely, but should learn to play by some of the same rules.  At the Transnatural conference

___New information floods through society at a faster rate than ever. Bit.fall translates abstract information flow into a waterfall of words. Specially designed software filters news from

___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

___Stel je voor dat je met potlood een instrument tekent en je dat vervolgens kunt bespelen. Toekomstmuziek? Niet met de Drawdio, een potlood waarmee je geluid uit alledaagse voorwerpen kunt halen. Bijna alles uit je omgeving kun je bespelen als een simpele synthesizer. Je tekening op papier, maar ook door met het potlood te tekenen op kleren, deuren en ramen, andere mensen, en zelfs bomen of het water uit de kraan! Eén Drawdio wordt weggegeven! maandag 21 t/m vrijdag 25 maart 2011, duur: ±1 uur

In een set ingericht als een kleurige, magische ‘tuin’ met levende organismen als vissen, maden, wormen en vogels zullen kinderen live gegenereerd beeld en geluid mixen tot een eigen VJ/DJset! maandag 21 t/m vrijdag 25 maart 2011, duur: ±1 uur

___Stadlbauer is a scientist, artist and urban bee keeper, developing new mutually beneficial combinations of culture, technology and nature. She is part of the Herbologies / Foraging Network that combines the cultural traditions and knowledge around edible and medicinal plants with the possibilities of online networks and open-source methods. Her talk is an exploration on behaviour and strategies of bees and men driven by the quest for urban edibles. ~ In the workshop Bee-o-Logical Housing participants investigate hands-on *out of the box* bee-hive-design. apiary.be www.herbologies-foraging.net  

___The Incredible Shrinking Man project suggests to downsize the human species to better fit the earth. It brings together evolutionary insights, Space colonisation research, fossil findings, speculative design, literature and film. Hendriks presents his research and its bio-historical, scientific and conceptual components. ~ In his hands-on workshop participants map out the spatial and cultural effects of shrinking by redesigning space, food, and objects. www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net

___Mansy is leading a laboratory for synthetic and biology at the University of Trento. He researches the making, growth and multiplication of protocells: life-like systems without DNA that may emerge spontaneously under the right chemical circumstances. He works with Sascha Pohflepp in the Synthetic Aesthetics project. www.smansy.org

___Sascha is an artist and designer who is interested in past and future technologies, notions of art, business and idealism, and how they inform which worlds come true and which worlds are discarded. He participates in the Synthetic Aesthetics project that brings together synthetic biologists, designers, artists and social scientists to explore collaborations between synthetic biology, art and design. ~ In his workshop participants will do long-term narrative exploration on how the human future continues the past through new technologies. www.pohflepp.com

___James Auger & Jimmy Loizeau are artists and critical designers that develop objects and processes by which they question current and upcoming relations between society and technology. Their Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots putexisting notions on the role of robots and their relations with living creatures in a radically different context. ~ In their workshop participants work towards design proposals for alternative ways in which robots may enter the household. www.auger-loizeau.com

___ At the conference speakers will offer a varied introduction to workshops thatexplore the theme in roughly three different area's: economy, aesthetics and everyday life. Themes of 2012 conference are:

___The Andrea Air Purifier places the air purification trait of plants in a technological esthetic that changes the perception of a plant into one of a delicate instrumental machine. Artist: /designer Mathieu Lehanneur (FRA)

___The Institute for Digital Biology researches the next step in the evolution of the internet, when websites and services further develop themselves in the direction of becoming living creatures. Visitors may take care of a colony of microscopically Pop-Up creatures or may save duped Chinese site from a page view shortage. Artist: Walewijn den Boer (NL)

___QuArt.z#1 is an installation about the growth of crystals especially made for Transnatural. Elements from sculpture and painting hereby grow organically into a spatial whole with a special liquid. Artist: Frederik de Wilde (BE)

___Acoustic Botany is a controlled ecosystem of entertainment, a fantastical acoustical garden that aims to explore our cultural and aesthetic relationship to nature, and to question its future in the age of Synthetic Biology. Artist: David Benqué (UK)

___The Ultimaker is a 3D printer and a spawn of the RepRap project. This project aims to build a machine that can replicate all its own parts. During TransNatural the Ultimaker is used to print components with biodegradable materials. Artist: Erik de Bruijn (NL)

___ The OpenStructures project explores the possibilities for a modular construction model where everyone designs for everyone on the basis of one shared geometrical grid. It initiates a kind of collaborative Meccano to which everybody can contribute parts, components and structures. Artist:  Thomas Lommee (BE)

___The Botanic Code is a visualization of subjective data. It remediates a classic image of natural beauty. Voigt walked through botanical gardens in various cities over the world. She translated the color, density and pattern of flowers through an algorithm into painted aluminum rods. Artist: Jorinde Voigt (GER)

___ A windowfarm is a small vertical garden that consists of mostly recycled materials and advanced gardening techniques. This do-it-yourself installation makes it possible to grow vegetables in your own house. Company: Windowfarms (USA)

___Sonja Baumel transforms invisible bacteria on the surface of the skin into visible and functional fashion. In this mix of fashion and science a new organic skin is created. Artist: Sonja Bäumel (AUT)

___The Incredible Shrinking Man explores the possibilities and consequences of human beings shrinking to only 50 cm. The average length of human beings is growing more and more, along comes the increasing use of energy, food and space. What happens when we wouldn’t grow but shrink? Artist: Arne Hendriks (NL)  

Growth Assembly constructs a future with genetically modified plants in which parts and products can be grown for mass production. Transportation becomes redundant as seeds can be send and grown where they will be sold. Artists: Sascha Pohflepp (UK / GER) & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (UK)

___The Latro is based on a recently proven technology where tiny amounts of electricity were tapped from living algae. As a speculative design product the Latro could function as hanging lamp. The Latro is a living product that uses sunlight, CO2 (through breath) and water. Artist: Mike Thompson (UK/ NL)

___The E-Chromi is a genetically modified bacterium that can form a colony in the human bowels. In a healthy metabolism, it will give feces a blue color. In reaction

___Policing Genes speculates that amateurs and criminals also can use genetically modified plants. For example innocent looking plants can produce drugs and medicine. In Policing Genes the bees could act in this problem as animal cops. Artist: Thomas Thwaites (UK)

___ The Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots own the esthetics of sophisticated electronics and act like a carnivorous pet. Auger & Loizeau explore alternative design concepts of robots being a part of the domestic environment. artists: James Auger & Jimmy Loizeau  

___ The second Transnatural event presents an exhibition and symposium in which the work of articulate media-artists, speculative designers, avant-garde businesses and bleeding edge

___ Transnatural  festival 2010 is the first edition that will show to young and old the most interesting attempts from art, design, and science to fuse technology with nature. A glimpse of a new and rich world with transnatural architecture, installations, games and more.