Leveraging the “superpowers” of Engineered Living Materials to craft Soft Living Artefacts

In recent years several scholars from the design discipline attempted to conceptualize and frame "Living Artefacts" as a novel class of objects, alive and responsive in their relationship with humans. Simultaneously, a lesser explored but promising area is a synergetic collaboration between design, Human-Computer Interaction and synthetic biology, where the Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) developed by bioengineers could be explored and exploited to craft Living Artefacts and improve user experience. ELMs possess some hallmark features of life, such as self-regeneration, autonomy and environmental responsiveness. This Studio would engage participants in design-driven explorations of an ELM, specifically a "augmented silicone" (silicone with embedded proteins), a material with programmed "superpowers", while exploring applications of ELMs beyond the sole bioengineering field. Participants and organizers would critically reflect on the Studio's outcomes and map the challenges, opportunities and ethical considerations while integrating design and biology.