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| fringejoyride_residency_review [2014-04-24 13:42] – nik | fringejoyride_residency_review [2014-04-28 01:42] – alkan |
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| ==== Fringejoyride Residency Review ==== | ==== Fringejoyride Residency Review ==== |
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| A reflection on a micro-residency by [[http://fringejoyride.com/|Lisa Ma]] | Reflections on a microresidency by [[http://fringejoyride.com/|Lisa Ma]] |
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| <html><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/13794112893" title="_22_0174 by foam, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/13794112893_f959811edd.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="_22_0174"></a></html><html><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/13898769383" title="15A_0164 by foam, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3702/13898769383_c71d5f1d21.jpg" width="560" alt="15A_0164"></a></html> | <html><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/13794112893" title="_22_0174 by foam, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/13794112893_f959811edd.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="_22_0174"></a></html><html><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/13898769383" title="15A_0164 by foam, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3702/13898769383_c71d5f1d21.jpg" width="560" alt="15A_0164"></a></html> |
| == How do you define ‘biotechnology?’ == | == How do you define ‘biotechnology?’ == |
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| I stopped dead. This was the beginning presentation to my week’s intensive Micro-Residency at FoAM. I didn’t quite realize the emphasis on the word ‘intensive’ when founder Maja Kuzmanovic first proposed it to me. It definitely sounded fantastic that the whole core team was offering to spend the whole week helping me decipher my project, open conundrums, pull out gaping research holes that would eventually be filled by a gooey dough kneaded by brain-boggling dilemmas and heavily researched analysis… | I stopped dead. This was my opening presentation that would mark the beginning of a weeklong intensive microresidency at FoAM. I didn’t quite realize the emphasis on the word ‘intensive’ when founder Maja Kuzmanovic first proposed it to me. It definitely sounded fantastic that the whole core team was offering to spend an entire week helping me decipher my project, open conundrums, and pull out gaping research holes that would eventually be filled in with a gooey dough kneaded by brain-boggling dilemmas and heavily researched analysis… Here was represented fifteen years of expertise in 'transdisciplinary labs for speculative culture' -- famous for their dealings with food, biology, ecology, health, and the philosophy surrounding these. |
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| == Are you sure that’s not just ‘biology’, not ‘biotechnology’? == | == Are you sure that’s not just ‘biology’ instead of ‘biotechnology’? == |
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| Here was a 15 year expertise of “transdisciplinary labs for speculative culture" that’s famous for their dealings with food, biology, ecology, health, and the philosophy surrounding them. I first heard their name almost in an urged “how could you have not heard of them” way when I first brought my idea of eating invasive species in Ghent, Belgium. Here, I was proposing that biotechnology was in need of expanding outside the glamorous media attention on the stem-cell cures and spotlight-grabbing transhumanism and that the everyday experience- the supermarket tomato, the sugars in our toothpaste, doctors and the dentist, the parrot-less parks, the preserved ‘nature’… I was insisting that every part of the biology that we experience had scientific human-action. That this was all biotechnology. | I first heard of FoAM in a 'how could you not have heard of them' way when I brought my concept of eating invasive species to Ghent, Belgium. Here, I was proposing that a public understanding of biotechnology was in need of expanding beyond glamorous media attention focusing on stem-cell cures and spotlight-grabbing transhumanism and look at everyday experiences -- the supermarket tomato, the sugars in our toothpaste, the doctor and dentist we visit, the parrot-less parks, our preserved ‘nature’. I was insisting that every area of the biology we experience in daily life has a dimension of scientific human action. That this was indeed all biotechnology. |
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| == So what do you suppose technology is? == | == So what do you suppose technology is? == |
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| * human applications /skills/ tools towards a specific goal? | * human applications/skills/tools devised for a specific goal? |
| * stages of ‘progress’ since language? | * stages of ‘progress’ since language? |
| * “anything that was invented after you were born” –Alan Kay | * 'anything that was invented after you were born' (--Alan Kay) |
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| I suddenly realized that I wasn't working with a bemused academic who’d be used to a field but had never seen it in a speculative perspective. Here at Foam, I was dancing with a team of speculative experts who tears this stuff apart all the time. This was a week of devil’s advocacy in the format of a sweatshop zen-ship that I would be extremely grateful for. | I suddenly realized that I wasn't working with a bemused academic intimately acquainted with his or her field but never seeing it from a speculative perspective. Here at FoAM I was dancing with a team of speculative experts who tear this stuff apart all the time. This was a week of devil’s advocacy in the format of a sweatshop zen-ship that I was to be extremely grateful for. |
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| I came to FoAM to answer a very large mental block about my newest project about a new speculative fringe community, The Bioluddites. In the past 4 months, I’ve been working with Near Now in Nottingham, England, on a way to contextualizing a public project, a movement even of eating invasive plants and animals in the Vegetarian Capital of Ghent, Belgium. This spiral of local, social activities supported by the Ghent collaborators at Timelab had lead to a documentary filmed by the national TV, on-going collaborations with the scientists at the university, ‘folk’ practitioners of eating invasive to become local celebrities and I even fed the mayor with an invasive Canadian goose leg a la amateur-style cooking. | I came to FoAM to resolve a very large mental block about my newest project on a new speculative fringe community, the Bioluddites. In the past four months I’ve been working with Near Now in Nottingham, England, on a way to contextualize a public project, even a movement that eats invasive plants and animals in the Vegetarian Capital of Ghent, Belgium. This spiral of local, social activities supported by the Ghent collaborators at Timelab had lead to a documentary filmed by national TV, ongoing collaborations with scientists at the university, and ‘folk’ practitioners eating invasive species and becoming local celebrities. I even fed the mayor with an invasive Canadian goose leg //a la// amateur-style cooking. |
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| But what does this experiment mean beyond local enthusiasm? What do I do with the insights from these stories? Essentially how can speculative design use this intensely local project to create a meme that challenges us globally and socially? | But what does this experiment mean beyond local enthusiasm? What more could I do with the insights gleaned from these stories? Essentially, how can speculative design use this intensely local project to create a meme that challenges us globally and socially? |
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| == So invasive species are the Bioluddite’s biotechnology? (Because previously invasive species were a scientific glitch) == | == So invasive species are the Bioluddite’s biotechnology? (Because previously invasive species were a scientific glitch) == |
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| * [[:/future_fabulators/human_invasive_interaction|scenarios on human-invasives interaction]] | * [[:/future_fabulators/human_invasive_interaction|scenarios on human-invasives interaction]] |
| * [[:/future_fabulators/residencies|Future Fabulators residencies]] | * [[:/future_fabulators/residencies|Future Fabulators residencies]] |
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alkan