DesignWorkshop2010

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This page documents the art/design workshop run by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King with Yashas Shetty and the ArtScienceBangalore iGEM 2010 team.

We've joined for two weeks to help the team generate ideas for iGEM 2010 (James is here longer). This week, we're exploring the role of art and design in synthetic biology and iGEM, and trying to generate new ideas about what this contribution might be!



Monday 14th June: Reverse Engineering Workshop

Day 1 started with the team showing us what they've been up to the last three weeks.. an amazing journey from the history of microbiology to DIY lab equipment (including an incredible 7000rpm hand-held centrifuge made from an egg beater) to visits to the National Center for Biological Sciences.

We showed our work with other synthetic biologists, covering topics such as the difference between natural and synthetic forms of life, the promise and compromises of synthetic biology, new manufacturing processes, iGEM and finally the way that the concept of life might change due to synthetic biology.

As a group of artists and designers competing in a competition set up for engineers and scientists we need to think about how we can make a meaningful contribution without emulating the approach of science-based teams. As a group we found we were skeptical of the engineer's view of biology and wanted to explore alternative visions and ways of manipulating life. What would be the reverse of engineering?


The Rest Saving the West

Quite a few of the projects of previous iGEM teams are aimed at providing solutions for Third-World problems: Bacteria that detect arsenic in drinking water or cadmium contaminated food and bacteria that kill mosquitos larvae. Very few iGEM projects aim to solve first-world problems, such as Todai Tokyo's attempt to tackle lifestyle diseases.

So we asked the team to imagine they were entering the rather wonderful Designs for the First World competition as a team of tongue-in-cheek Synthetic Biologists from India trying to solve the problems plaguing the West:

  • Food Production and Eating Disorders
  • Aging Population and Low Birth rate
  • Immigration and Integration to Society
  • Sustainability and Over consumption


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After a group brainstorm the team came up with loads of ideas, highlights are below:

Food Production and Eating Disorders

  • Bacteria Salad - Bacteria that has the flavour and consistency of food but with none of its nutritional value - just like salad.
  • Moo.coli - Bacteria that replace cows in milk-production.

Aging Population and Low Birth rate

  • The Booster Cell - a cell with packed with mitochondria that latch onto the cells of the host organism (in this case, old people), giving them more energy.

Immigration and Integration to Society

  • Coloreria - Melanin controlling Bacteria.
  • Testosterone reducer - Bacteria that reduces and regulates testosterone in men, thus controlling crime in society.

Sustainability and Over consumption

  • Purgcaelum - Bacteria that filters pollution
  • A bacterial substitute for wood



Tuesday 15th June: Jugaad Biology

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The first Indian rocket was transported to the launch site by bicycle. source


Jugaad vs. Hack

"Jugaad is a survival tactic, whereas a hack is an intellectual art form; i.e. Jugaad is the wile of the poor, and hack the pastime of the affluent cerebral. Jugaad is a hack to get around or deal with a lack of or limited resources, and has a class component to it - jugaad are things poor but clever people do to make the most of the resources they have. They do what they need to do, without regard to what is supposed to be possible."


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A new paper by Maureen O'Malley at Exeter University describes synbio as a 'kludge': Making Knowledge in Synthetic Biology: Design Meets Kludge. A kludge is an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose - it's a bit like jugaad, a new word James and I learnt today. We watched Kempinski, a mysterious science fiction short. Simple and shot on a very low-budget, Kempinski is a documentary of a future somewhere in Africa, its realistic inhabitants living in a strange mystical world. The interviewees discuss their existence showing the only artifacts of this other realm - fluorescent strip lights - somehow imbued with animist power.


This morning, we looked at the ways synbio might be hacked in unexpected ways. Starting with a talk on the Promise and Peril in Synthetic Biology, we discussed the social, ethical and cultural issues raised by synbio. We discussed synbio hype, who benefits, and the critics of synbio. With the BP oil spill and Bhopal Gas Tragedy in our minds, what might the synbio version of engineering failure be? What is the grey area between the disaster of bioterror/bioerror, or the perfect sustainable future we're promised?


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This is the list we all came up with:


  • Bioterrorism
  • Bioerrorism
  • Irresponsible Promotion: Artists irresponsibly appropriating technology - lack of criticality?
  • Creating Monsters... bad design
  • Destruction of natural ecological networks – foreign species
  • Bandwagon – throwing money at inappropriate technology and solutions? (Global rather than local solutions/politics)
  • Blind Faith: Making it just because you can, not questioning why doing it – new farmed-out mass technology is a synbio lab.
  • Environmental disaster… things escape that are fine in the lab, that reproduce
  • Synbio’s Paradox It’s safe because it can’t escape and isn’t robust outside the lab. Yet we have applications that will be put into the environment!
  • Intellectual Property who owns the technology. Should corporations be allowed to patent DNA? Are we making something new – so that can be patented?
  • Is their interest the community? Who will control the licensing?
  • Bioprospecting taking things from nature and commercializing them
  • Give and Take How can people be compensated – how to create a sustainable industry?
  • Rate of Change Can policy and law keep up with the rate of change of technology
  • Just because we can make it, should we?
  • How do you govern it?
  • Priority How do we prioritize what we want, where we want it?
  • Unexpected wars… War because Middle East’s oil is no longer wanted!
  • Getting left behind will everyone have to do it
  • Increasing the imbalance Anti-malarials and fuel for the third world made in the Midwest.


News at One


The team split into groups of three, each selecting an iGEM project from any of the competition years, to imagine unexpected, unintended uses of this technology. We asked:

  • Are we in the future, the present (or even the past)?
  • How is it being used in an unexpected context or manner?
  • How has it been hacked?
  • Who is using it?
  • Is it for a good or a bad purpose?

Inspired by two episodes of American comedy news show, the Colbert Report (on BP and Jay Keasling) each team presented a news item, telling us the story of a group of people using the technology in a completely unexpected way. Mukhund came over from NCBS to watch the show.


Today on News at One

  • Sticky Situation Sex before marriage at risk as Glucoli found in condoms. Concerned mothers sabotaging daughters' boyfriends thought to be culprits.
  • Anarchist Amalgamation BP claims latest oil spill found to be caused by GM bacteria released by terrorists. Sequencing shows cause from multiple commercial strains. Anarchist factory workers at the heart of the outbreak.
  • Hair-Raising A new technology designed to switch genes on and off is being used to combat Alopecia and premature balding. A cosmetic industry hack of medical technology causing a trend as consumers found standing under light sources before a special date to cover up bald spots and grow glossy heads of hair.


iGEA Prelims! - Afternoon workshop


Having stepped into the realm of the impossible and the sci-fi future, we wanted to bring back the idea of Jugaad Biology - the artist and the scientist using the hack or kludge.


  • What is the iGEA competition - the International Genetically Engineered Art Competition?
  • What categories are there?
  • What prizes can be won? How do people communicate their work?
  • What might be disqualified from entering?


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The three competition proposals:

Samrajni, Anusha, Shreya

  • Awards: Most Critical of the Social System, Most Socially Controversial, Most Influential on Pop Culture, Best Peer Review, Best Concept, Best Expressed Idea, Best Negative Emotion Evoked,Best Positive Emotion Evoked, Best Use of Colours;
  • Prizes: Monetary incentives, recognition;
  • Disqualification: Plagiarism, Not Breaking Biosafety Laws.


Karthik, Aaron, Sayed Represent the Concept of Life

  • Awards:Best Social Critique, Best Use of Colour,Best Visual Aesthetics, Most Innovative Concept, Best Pattern & Texture, Most Thought Provoking, Best Abstract Work, Most Eco, Gestalt Award;
  • Disqualification: None- everything is valid;


Mohor, Sankhalina, Akshitta Zoobotart

  • Categories: Plants - Thorn-Art, Pigment Art, Flower Art; Microbes - Collage Art, Dye Art; Light Art, Movement Art
  • Awards I: Modification,Installation,Concept, Aesthetics,Survival period, Static/Dynamic, Future Uses - purposeful; II: Ecosystem: With at least 3 organisms (modified) surviving
  • Disqualification Criteria: Useless or useful but harmful, Survival in extreme conditions but death not accepted


Before discussing the competitions compiled by each of the three groups, we asked everyone: What do you, as artists and designers, bring to synthetic biology? A huge debate exploded!

  • What are the differences and similarities between artists and scientists, their points of view, aims, boundaries, logic, constraints? What about design?
  • Experimentation, subjectivity, tangibility, play, process, aesthetics? What about sensitivity and empathy?
  • It's a new medium, but we don't know the limitations. Like paint, we need to mess around to learn! We've been learning the science, but we still need to break through the barrier. Scientists though tend to be constrained by what exists.
  • Art as critique on society and self.
  • Context - do designers have a broader approach than scientists who need deep knowledge?
  • Art and science both exploring questions? Both can explore things the unconventional way.
  • Is the end product or the process our priority? In science, is the end product the priority?
  • Bad science, bad art...
  • Plagiarism - is recombinent DNA plagiarising? How does open source fit in - remix culture.
  • Is the difference similar to a chef making molecular gastronomy and a scientist engineering food?


We compiled the discussion into the ideal art/design iGEM competition. Ready for the launch tomorrow... Could scientists enter iGEA to subvert it?



Wednesday 16th June: Welcome to iGEA 2010

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iGEM started as class at MIT in 2003, evolving into an international competition. Today at Srishti we're launching iGEA, - The International Genetically Engineered Art competition - the art and design sibling of iGEM.

Powered by synthetic biology, iGEA explores how this emerging technology can be used for art and design purposes.

DNA parts submitted by teams to the Parts Gallery - an Open Source biological media library - may be used in new art and design works, and even by scientists...

We are an open source platform created to enable artists and designers to find new uses for synbio, to create new discourse about the science, and for implementing and exhibiting your creative projects at the interface of art and science.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon designing the new competition, the awards and rules.


The Awards


  • Best Ecosystem
  • Best New Emotion
  • Best Social Critique
  • Best Pop-Culture
  • Shooting Star (short-lived, burning bright)
  • Remix Culture


  • GRAND PRIZE: Gestalt Award


  • Critics Choice for Visual Aesthetics
  • Genetic Raspberry Award


Today, we're running the inaugural iGEA with 3 teams.

The competition rules:

What does your organism do, how did you make it, what is its impact, why does it fit in the category, what new parts did you have to make?

Make an art/science poster for your iGEA entry. What is an art/science poster?

To describe your project, you could also make artifacts, images, a film, a performance or a powerpoint to use as props in your presentation.

At the end of the day, we’ll be holding the iGEA competition presentations.

Prizes will be awarded; the Gestalt Award Winner will present their iGEA project at the National Centre for Biological Sciences tomorrow!

Good Luck!


Round 1

Combo categories were picked out of a hat by each team, and at the end of the day, first ideas were presented.

  • Best New Emotion & Best Pop-Culture: Formal-in Culture Aaron & Sayed

Ants secrete and detect formaldehyde in order to structure the behavior of their colony. In order to manipulate the culture of an ant colony, Aaron and Sayed suggested that a bacteria could be engineered to inhibit formaldehyde production in ants: making the ants more individualistic.

  • Best Ecosystem & Shooting Star: Yuga Bacteria (aka PastPresentFuture Bacteria) Akshitta, Shreya & Anusha

Imagining a Hookah as an ecosystem, this team proposed to engineer a bacteria that produced powerful psychotropic drugs that could be inhaled and that would present visions of the past, present and the future.

  • Best Social Critique & Remix Culture: DNA Remix Karthik, Mohor & Samrajni

This group proposed a future in which humans have learned to modify their biology, remixing the parts of other animals into their bodies. Wings for transport and shells for shelter.


Thursday 17th June: On Tigers and Small Disasters

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A discussion on designing from our local, personal perspective as opposed to global was an interesting precursor to our visit to the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS).

We presented along with Zack Denfeld to the NCBS scientists, Srishti staff and an interesting mix of academics and NGO's. The team had the mixed pleasure of hearing the talks again (sorry!) but in a new context: inside the scientific establishment. Did we change the way we spoke? What kinds of critique did we encounter from the NCBS scientists? The discourse continued in the NCBS garden with the scientists, amongst spice plants curated as part of an exhibition on historical bioprospecting, Such Treasure and Rich Merchandize.

In the afternoon, with a view over NCBS, we discussed as a group. How do we feel about technology and what happens when it fails? After these last few weeks, how does everyone feel about synthetic biology? Some interesting points about the social constructs around science were raised in the morning presentations, like the example of a GM wheat introduced into India that failed - women were uncomfortable kneading it as the ground grain texture wasn't right to make local foods.

Should we just accept it and move forward? Can we deny progress? An interesting idea was raised - that we can only learn about how to handle a technology by a failure, perhaps even a small one, effectively 'inoculating' society against future grand disaster. So what is a small disaster? Deepwater Horizon is a certainly a grand oil disaster, despite countless previous spills.

Zach got controversial: tigers! With just 1444 left, could a bacteria be engineered to specifically target these national treasures? So rare, their loss wouldn't have much impact on the ecosystem, but it would raise huge debate about what we want from a technology. 'Cute megafauna' touched our hearts more than the extinguishing of the sun.


iGEA day 2


Back to Srishti to work on the iGEA entries, this time, to develop a bacteria within the realms of the scientifically possible. Each group has to make an artifact and represent it in a film to tell the story of the iGEA bacteria. Developing the ideas from Wednesday, each group kept the same categories.

  • Best Ecosystem & Shooting Star (short-lived, burning bright)
  • Best New Emotion & Best Pop-Culture
  • Best Social Critique & Remix Culture

The film should illustrate the working of the BioBrick in particular and organism in general, using existing BioBrick terminology.

The idea can be wild, but the science must be possible in 2010!


Friday 18th June: Telling Tales

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Model of the Glandotransius


This morning, the iGEA teams presented their films and artifacts, made since last night!


The Glandotransius Akshitta, Shreya & Anusha

The Glandotransius is an engineered E.coli that stimulates various glands in the human body. It accentuates the effects of certain hormones. It produces DMT, Dimethyltryptamine, a chemical produced by the pineal gland, found in almost all plants and mammals and a hallucinatory, dangerous drug. The Glandotransius stimulates the ecosystem of the various glands, from the testes to the hypothalamus. While the pineal gland is synonymous with Shiva’s Third Eye, its over-stimulation may also bring with it lack of perception leading to lack of communication, a plethora of psychological and physical problems and long term effects like permanent damage to the immune and central nervous system.

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E.cloudy Mohor, Samranji & Farhad

Bacteria which help coordinate your music with the weather. E.cloudy is a Bacteria which is temperature sensitive and produces electricity. The E.Cloudy bacteria contain two existing BioBrick parts – BBa_K098995, responsible for the thermo sensitivity.(Designed by Harvard 2008 IGEM team) and BBa_K499271, responsible for the electricity (designed by Boris Kirov IGEM 2010).

Apart from being aware of the weather, it creates awareness in how two very different genes, from possibly two very different organisms have been put together to create a machine. It could lead us to questioning our rights to remix things, whether it is OK to mix the machine with living cells, and our rights to play with natural selection. Can we define this as a form of natural selection?


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Formal-in Culture Aaron & Sayed

Video coming soon...


Next, a lecture on Telling Tales...


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NCBS garden and exhibition


How are science stories told?

Yesterday, we saw the exhibition about bioprospecting at NCBS, Such Treasure & Rich Merchandize, told through curated plants and images. How do other iGEM teams tell the story of their work? Harvard's Christina Agapakis has a great blog called Oscillator that investigates art and design as well as synbio, this year she is running the Harvard iGEM team, who are making a lovely wiki documenting their work. Semiconductor Film's Magnetic Movie takes voice interviews with scientists at NASA Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, California, talking about magnetism and gravitational field and other invisible forces, making them visible and tangible through sound and animation laid over real spaces.


Telling stories through artifacts...

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Miller Urey Experiment, Cloaca, contraption from Man in the White Suit

After the great narratives told this morning, we looked at precedents of other artists and designers telling stories through objects, from tales about manufacturing and sustainability Thomas Thwaites' Toaster Project, to alternative histories - Sascha Pohflepp's Golden Institute to frame the present and future.

Noam Toran and Onkar Kular's Macguffin Library takes plot devices from films, nicknamed Macguffins by Hitchock, and collates them into a physical library, some from real films, interspersed with some of their own fiction. Feelings are Facts, a new collaborative installation by Olafur Eliasson in Beijing creates a physical environment through mist, coloured light, and sound to tell a story.

Thinking about ecosytems, we considered Wim Delvoyes's Cloaca system in context with the famousMiller-Urey Experiment, which recreated the first development of life, with scene's from classic Ealing comedy The Man in the White Suit, where great sound design creates the atmosphere of scientific discovery.


Telling stories about stories

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Ghanaian, Polish, contemporary parody

What about local genres? Japanese cartoons like Spirited Away combine spiritual themes with contemporary animation. Next, we looked at film posters from around the world thinking about the art/science poster question... Ghana, Poland, India. What are local genres for story telling? Polish film posters sum up the entire plot in one visual play-on-words, like Jaws 2, a shark with two jaws. We looked at contemporary graphic designers playing with this genre (like the Face Off poster above, part of a series). The Ghanaian posters are totally wild hand-paintings that aren't tied to reality. Meanwhile the tradition here in India of the hand-painted film poster still exists, despite increasingly ubiquitous printed billboards. The hand-crafted poster is an interesting genre, each slightly different, context and craft dependent... a bit like synbio in practice!


What other local genres can we look to?


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Amar Chitra Katha is a slice of Indian comic heritage. The comics, many drawn in the sixties, are still published today and recount Indian mythologies and epics, both Hindu and Buddhist, in incredibly beautiful comic form. They are the backbone of many kids (and adults!) knowledge of mythology.

We picked up the Stories of Shiva and Devotees of Vishnu at Blossoms Bookhouse; now we're starting to look for tales, ideas and concepts in the stories. What parallel tropes, images, language can we find with synthetic biology? How are the myths and stories of science constructed?



Saturday 19th June: The Guardian of Your Genome

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Image from the BBC's 'The Ghost in Your Genes'

This morning we watched The Ghost in Your Genes, a BBC Horizon documentary about epigenetics, the study of inherited change in gene expression. Do we carry the burden of our ancestors' lifestyles? The documentary suggests that the environmental experiences of our parents and grandparents could flick epigenetic switches that are passed down to us, changes that we will pass on to our children. Famine, toxins and lifestyle exposure at key stages of our lives (in the womb for females, and before puberty for males, stages when eggs and sperm are being manufactured) could have significant impact on our future descendants. Evidence suggests that removing an egg from the womb as part of routine IVF procedure could be enough to trigger certain switches, the change in context stressing the cell. A moment of change affects future generations. The film suggests that we are the "guardian of our genomes", that our behaviour doesn't just affect our own health.

We started discussing parallel metaphors, like that of Karma, the consequence of acts which can be passed on to future generations, and issues of context and location in biology. Considering some of the ideas we have come up with this week, many have been about giving context to bacteria - E.cloudy, Crime as emotion, Glandotransius. Can physical context affect bacteria? How will the lab equipment the team made change the bacteria? Can we think of this as a kind of memory construction?

Thinking about story telling, the Swedish village in the documentary helped construct the narrative - the context framed the arguments. In effect, the inhabitants wrote the story through documentation of harvests, population etc, and the scientists extracted and interpreted the data. Scientists borrow from narrative to construct a scientific story, though they don't always admit this in such terms! But data is always subject to interpretation in some way.

We touched on Adam Zaretsky's approach, and Dunne & Raby's Manifesto, which differentiates science fiction from social fiction, futures from parallel worlds, and fictional functions from functional fictions. Earlier this morning, we had been discussing fake iPhones made in small workshops in India, physically indistinguishable from the real thing except for the software, and context-dependent hacks like two-sim card mobiles that allow two phone numbers on one phone, responding to local demand.

Can we think about an 'Indian biology' (a local biology, like 'Indian physics or Indian maths' which are recognised paths of thought)? Can we think about 'Indian critical design'? Context-dependent, local memes, much like the two-sim card mobile phone?



Monday 21st June (Daisy's Birthday): Synthetic Mythologies

Local stories

Today we are continuing our exploration of Indian mythologies and looking for parallels and shared metaphors with synthetic biology. The team are delving through the Stories of Shiva and the Devotees of Vishnu and collecting examples that echo the themes that arose through our discussions last week, we grouped last week's ideas into these themes:

  • Bio-prospecting
  • Ecosystems
  • Immunisation 
against a disaster
  • Karma
  • Epigenetics
  • Soma
  • and, of course, Jugaad

Mohor has already spotted a great example: The Transformation of Daksha from Man to Man-Goat. More to come…

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Over the weekend, Daisy and I picked up a copy of TimeOut Bangalore which proved a treasure trove of useful information for this project. We came across a reference to a collection of documentary films made by the local farming population about the use of Biotech crops in India: GE in 24 Frames.

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How will genetic engineering and Synthetic Biology affect Indians in their everyday lives? The films above might indicate that the early reception from the farming community to biotech crops has been highly negative. This bears a very obvious comparison to Stuart Brand's much-touted example of the Amish's use of Genetically engineered Seed.

Local ways of telling stories

The second fantastic find was Level 10 Comics a Bangalore-based publisher of comic books. Below are some examples of their publications and here is an article about them.

Northern Song "Set in a world inspired by Indian myth, Northern Song tells the tale of the mysterious Bala and his quest that takes him all over this mystical land"

The Rabhas Incident "A mysterious virus that turns its victims to a feral, savage and rabid state has been released in Bangalore"

Shaurya "Set against the backdrop of Mumbai, five gifted teenagers from different parts of the country, unite to overcome their personal differences and emerge as a unified front to take on the might of a globe-spanning terrorist organization."

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We'll be trying to get in touch with Level 10 Comics this week.


In the afternoon, we collated the myths under each heading, trying to find synbio myths that matched. How could we tell these stories through bacteria? Each group started to think about specific bacteria that would tell these stories. From mirror images to ecosystems, how can new ideas be mined from old stories? Do we need to make up new myths?


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The Centre for Everything hosted us for an evening of mythology with Arshia Sattar, Sanskrit scholar and translator of Valmiki's Ramayana. We began by going through the lists from the afternoon with Arshia, examining each myth and its connection to synbio.


"Synbio is taking myth and making history "

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Out on the terrace until late, we dipped into history, myth, truth, science, story-telling, expertise and navigating ten open tabs open in your browser window.

In Hindu mythology (and life in general!) we can think of everything working in an ecosystems - the myths are populated by gods and anti-gods. Each action brings about a consequence. For example, in the story of the Churning of the Ocean, we see gods and demons pitted against each other, neither could survive without the existence of the other, their position in the world depends on their context in the power struggle. In the demons' world-view, they feel they should be on top and the gods naturally feel that the world is at rights when they are on top. The world exists around this constant shift, one can only exist with the other. How does this relate to synbio?

If "a myth is a lie that tells the truth", then what kinds of myths is synbio telling us, and what kinds of stories should we be telling about the science's ideology?

We talked about hybrids, a recurring theme in mythology. From playwright Girish Karnad's retelling of story of the woman who swapped her best friend's and husband's heads and bodies (which ended in disaster), to the half-horse, half-human trope that recurs around the world. Synbio, is of course, about hybrids. But other words and language are common to the world of literary story-telling and scientific story-telling, like transformation.

We talked more about story-telling in science and its inability to tell stories about itself. Indian narratives have a framing - each 'scene' is a frame for another story. What it the frame in Synthetic Biology? Arshia controversially said, "I don't think scientists should be given the use of metaphor - just like I, as a literary scholar, shouldn't be given the use of the red button!". Samrajni asked, "What if genetic engineering is like science's imagination?". Arshia suggested, "Synthetic biology is the construction of a causality, we are then a hair's breadth away from a narrative". In fiction, we don't need to make it real to tell the story, but in science, we do. In the arts, it is about being present in your work, whereas in science, it is about being absent from it. In design, we also make ourselves absent from the work? Is this why some arts groups are using groups to represent themselves, like Critical Art Ensemble and The Center for Post-Natural History?



Precision is key - to work in this way we must know the mythology well, we must know its variants and the stories in detail. Each story has many ways to be told, from Valmiki to the grandmother's version, to the sanitised Amar Chitra Katha comics we've been looking at! You shouldn't tell a myth without knowing what it is about.

The themes found in mythologies are often universal. The great skill from the team will be to pick a story that has a trope in many cultures. A local but global story.



Tuesday 22nd June: Myths Are Lies That Tell The Truth

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James and I went to see Raavan, a new Bollywood telling of the Ramayana epic, in Hindi. We were amazed that the entire film was shot twice, in Hindi and Tamil. One of the lead actors in the Hindi version played the opposing role of demon in the Tamil version.

In mythology, travelling from A to B can be an epic journey, with many tales along the way framed by the larger narrative construct. Is the potential for the epic being rejected by the rational myth-making in synthetic biology? Yesterday evening with Arshia we discussed whether science was about closing down possible narratives to find the truth, whereas story-telling is about opening up the space.

Some of the discussion this morning focused on this question: that science (not always, but potentially synbio) is about finding the shortest route from A to B, whereas myths and stories are about creating the opportunity for multiple routes.

Today, the team are continuing the task to tell a myth through a bacteria, this time producing a Bollywood inspired poster. We looked at a great selection taken from the Taschen book, The Art of Bollywood, a historical archive of the poster genre. How are the key elements of the story conveyed? What metaphors are used? The Fake Science blog shows how new myths can be constructed to create a critical commentary.


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Should these art/science hybrid posters of biological interpretations of myths be diagrammatic, narrative or simply evocative?


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We reviewed the first iteration at the end of the afternoon, now the final version must be created by tomorrow!


Wednesday 23rd June: A New Myth

The team presented their Bollywood film posters of Hindu mythologies told through bacterial universes this morning. Beautiful renderings, extremely complex metaphors told through graphic representations. Amazing!


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Lead Me From Darkness to Light

Based on the story of Sita and her shadow in the Ramayana... summary to come!


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The Holy Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva - Creator, Preserver, Destroyer)

"The Holy Trinity – Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the destroyer. These are the first and foremost gods that rule the heavens, earth and hell. As you’re reading this don’t those three words –creator, preserver and destroyer burst out of your imagination and find its way to synthetic biology? Well, that’s exactly what happened to us. So here’s our idea.

In a over populated culture of bacteria. There is ‘imbalance’ since there more bacteria to eat than the nutrition available. So the ‘gods’ are summoned! The VISH-gene bacteria (the preserver) now gets into action by producing a chemical to which ONLY the SHIV-gene bacteria (the destroyer) can read. This then activates the SHIV-gene bacteria to in turn produce a chemical which start disrupting the bacterial cells in the colony. The ‘gods’ bacteria are of course resistant to this chemical. The SHIV-gene bacteria once activated has no control over killing the other cells. So once he has destroyed ample number of cells, he needs to be stopped, which ONLY the BRAHM-gene can do. So now the VISH-gene bacteria produces another chemical which ONLY the BRAHM-gene bacteria can read and this in turn activates the BRAHM-gene bacteria to produce a chemical to deactivate the SHIV-gene bacteria. Now there’s been too many bacteria killed so after a while of reproduction the optimum level is reached and ‘balance’ is restored. The subjects are happy and so are the gods. Soon after reproduction hastens up and there is over population again so the whole process is initiated making it a loop.

BRAHM-gene bacteria are identified with the presence of the BRAHM-gene. When the BBRAHM- gene replicates it does not transfer it’s genetic material completely, instead it retains one part of the gene, so the other bacteria now is the VISH-gene bacteria. When the BRAHM-gene bacteria replicates for the second time it does not transfer the BRAHM-gene at all making the new organism the SHIV-gene.

We’d like to think that this mythological concept, besides being fascinating will definitely find its way to a good purpose in the world of Synthetic Biology. So wait up until then." Aaron


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Samudra Manthan - The Churning of the Ocean

"This idea of the soma bacteria is inspired by the popular Hindu myth of the Samudra Manthan, commonly known as “the churning of the ocean“. The phrase “soma bacteria” comes from the drink of “soma”, which is a drink primarily behaving as an anesthetic in this famous mythical incident.

The soma bacteria are not just one bacterium but a pair of bacteria, which are co-dependent, unstable in the absence of each other. One bacterium is harmful in relation to the human body, whereas the other one is harmless, but it is to be noted that it is not of a curative nature. The habitat of these bacteria is common rust. While they live in their rusty habitat, they live in colonies but there is no activity of exchange taking place. The minute it comes in contact with the human body, the bacteria get activated at once. It commutes throughout the human body, causing harm. The minute it comes in contact with a white blood cell (WBC), the two bacteria start exchanging their genetic material rapidly. While the WBC recognizes that one bacterium is harmless, it also realizes that the other one is harmful. But due to the rapid state of exchange of genetic material, the WBC is unable to recognize the harmful one and try and kill it. While the harmless bacterium contains a protein, which the WBC cannot counter, it cannot kill either of the bacteria. Thus, the WBC can never destroy the soma bacteria at any given time." Samrajni


James and I came up with one of our own, very very quickly, based on the mushroom thought to be a contender for soma.

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Soma

Gods and Demons churned it from the ocean. Now we make it in the lab.

Soma bacteria contain Muscimol-producing genes bioprospected from the mushroom Amanta Muscaria, a psychoactive yet highly poisonous drug. Soma promises the immortal soul - or at least treatment from phobias, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.


Mapping Myth


If a myth is a lie that tells the truth,now its time to construct a new myth for synthetic biology. First, what is the existing myth of synbio. We need to analyse the promises, issues, characters, ideologies that make up the construct of this new approach to genetic engineering. Next, we'll start to create our new myth. How do we see it? What do we think it should be like. Synthetic biology functions in a binary world, of good versus evil, solution versus problem. How can we start to describe the more complex ecosystems of biology and context, our visions, fears, questions, hopes? Can we tell it in a narrative form, bringing in the ideas we've constructed, bioprospected from Indian mythology to create our new story. Quite a task, but if we can pull it off, it'll be a wonderful story.

We'll start by looking at the genre's 'classic text', Adventures in Synthetic Biology, a comic published in Nature in November 2005, co-authored by Drew Endy.

Next, we'll unravel the synbio myth to find the key messages. What are we promised? We need to map out the current myth of synbio, before we can write our own.


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The New York Times recently published an article on the perils of powerpoint, highlighting the case of this mindmap of American military strategy, though highly complex, it tells the story... The team quickly drew a map of the key characters in synbio. More on this soon!

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Now, its back to biobricks and time to map out this morning's presentations with biobricks and design experiments to describe the concepts.



Thursday 24th June

James' article about different versions of Synbio http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/slippery_cellularities/

Daisy's Article about design and synbio http://www.designindaba.com/article/form-and-multiply

Daisy and Oron's Fiction about a dystopian synbio future: http://www.daisyginsberg.com/images/IconWellOiledMachine/ICON_WellOiledMachine_GinsbergCatts.jpg

Critical time Magazine Article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1997447,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Collection of Videos and Talks: http://beta.interaction.rca.ac.uk/synbio/?page_id=23

Long Now Debate about Synbio http://fora.tv/2008/11/17/Drew_Endy_and_Jim_Thomas_Debate_Synthetic_Biology

Venter at Ted http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/227

Venter talking to Designers http://www.designindaba.com/speaker/video/j-craig-venter-designing-science