Team:ArtCenter MDP/Notebook

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research

Because we are outside of the field of synthetic biology we began by immersing ourselves in it, reading: Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature is a Post Wild World, J. Craig Venter Institute's Press Release “First Self-Replicating Synthetic Bacterial Cell,” Oron Catts and Gary Cass's “Labs Shut Open: A Biotech Hands-on Workshop for Artists” to name a few. This helped us gain a better understanding of the emerging research and conversations within synthetic biology. Generally everything we read blew our minds, everything was interesting! So this was really our research challenge as designers, where or what can we most effectively contribute to the field? What conversation can we offer another perspective to? Thank you Christina Agapakis and Ben Hooker for sources.

brainstorming

The team collaborated through a series of brainstorming sessions. Each person discussed their research. Through a series of white boarding sessions we developed a set of categories or groupings that helped identify where our research and interests overlapped:

Culture Reserves / Modeling Life:

Ecosystem Design / Rewiliding & De-Exticntion:

Evolution / Time & Scale:

Coding Life / Using Nature to Carry Out Human Processes:

questions

As we developed our concepts certain questions kept coming up for us:

concept development

Imagine huge bodies of water, giant ponds and lakes and just below the surface are trillions of organisms working 24/7, eating plant life and producing gasoline. - George Church, envisioning future synthetic biofuel production.
We developed a concept focusing on previous work in genetically altered algae for the use of biofuel production. what if people had their own fuel source, like their own pools of fuel producing bacteria in their back yards? pool at the center - center of life, a source - an ecosystem animals drinking from the watering hole but cars doing this but around pools Pools, private, public, community pools, water parks, hot tubs, oh my... What are the degrees of quality? - abundance, obsession, need of fuel in connection with water + cars + LA. Would LA be the most powerful? an energy epicenter? What are the demographics of pool owners? 43,000 pools in the L.A. Basin, the average size was about 16 by 33 feet. Beverly Hills had the most pools per capita. Beverly Hills has 2,481 backyard pools. How would pool designs change the production/ecosystem? How would future pool & parking garage designs change? Scale is an issues. The bacterial takes AWHILE to create enough to fuel. Reality in the behavior - take about 100 litres of bacteria to produce a single teaspoon of the fuel. For large scale production it would take a lot of lakes/pools/time, what if people had their own smaller scale production or source - MOONSHINE, bathtub gin Gas companies creating their own branded bacteria, the new role of the pool boy, gas station, gas station attendant What new rituals form around maintaining this pool? - skimming to remove insects, leaves, the random mouse.

design

The ecosystem surrounding the pool became our site for investigation; our site to "play out" our design, questions, and speculation.

site visits

Based on advice from our advisors, we started to grow our own algae as a way to prototype and simulation our localized fuel production model.

simulation 1

simulation 2

Simulation 2

so.cal. igem meetup

Over the summer Media Design Practices hosted the Southern California iGEM meetup.

observations

You should make use of the calendar feature on the wiki and start a lab notebook. This may be looked at by the judges to see how your work progressed throughout the summer. It is a very useful organizational tool as well.

insights

You should make use of the calendar feature on the wiki and start a lab notebook. This may be looked at by the judges to see how your work progressed throughout the summer. It is a very useful organizational tool as well.