Talking Culture #19: Synthetic Life: A future of 'Natural History'?
Goethe-Institut London
In this episode, we explore what becomes of nature when life is synthetic and ask what role biotech can play in ecological restoration.
The creations of biodigital convergence are redefining what constitutes life, just as a mass extinction is taking place. Emerging synthetic life includes, biological robots, digitally controlled dragonflies, internet connected implants in humans. What future natural history is being created today? The developments raise complex philosophical, societal and ecological questions about the kind of future present biotechnologies are ushering in.
Depending on what interests drive the developments, biotechnologies oscillate between amplifying the extraction and exploitation of nature, or aiding ecological restoration and interspecies kinship. It can be argued that by their very nature biotechnologies extract from and manipulate biological life; frog stem cells are the basis of a new breed of biological robots, mRNA vaccines record human DNA to attack Covid. The exploitation of life if digital systems of surveillance and control are extended into emergent digital biospheres. Yet, in the process of reconfiguring life, the inventions of biotech highlight the intricate workings of nature and challenge outmoded divisions and categories of the species. Resulting synthetic creations can help tackle environmental destruction, where beef is grown in a lab instead of cows grazing on deforested land, and bio-robots clear the oceans of rubbish.
The spectrum of possible futures that biodigital convergence opens up is vast, but could be very narrow if led by the interests of industry alone. In this conversation we consider the possibilities, and ask: What becomes of nature when life is synthetic? Who or what controls life when nature is bionic? And can biotech ever be part of ecological restoration?
Janek Zamoyski
Agnieszka Kurant (Łódź, Poland, 1978) is a conceptual artist investigating collective and nonhuman intelligences and the exploitations present in digital surveillance capitalism.
Kurant is the recipient of the 2020 LACMA A+T Award, the 2019 Frontier Art Prize, and the 2021 Google AMI Award. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Crowd Crystal at Castello di Rivoli (2021-22), Uncomputables at Hannover Kunstverein (2023), Exformation at Sculpture Center (2013) and Errorism at Kunsthal Gent and Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz (2021). In 2015 she realized a commission for the façade of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and in 2021-22 a permanent commission for the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA. In 2010 she co-represented Poland in the Polish Pavilion at the 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture (with A. Wasilkowska). Kurant’s works were also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Pompidou Center and Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Istanbul Biennial; the SFMOMA, Kunsthalle Wien, Witte de With; Whitechapel Art Gallery, the Kitchen, the De Young Museum, Gamec, Bergamo, CAPC Bordeaux, Moderna Museet; Louisiana Museum, Denmark; Villa Medici, Rome; Milano Triennale; Bonner Kunstverein; Kunstverein in Hamburg; Mumok, Vienna, Mamco, Geneva;Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; Frieze Projects, Performa Biennial and FRONT Triennial, Cleveland, among other institutions. Kurant was an artist in residence at the Berggruen Institute (2019-2021), a visiting artist at MIT CAST (2017-2020), and held a fellowship at the Smithsonian Institute (2018).
Her work will be featured in the upcoming Sydney Biennial (March 2024). Kurant’s upcoming solo exhibitions and projects include a solo show at Mudam Luxemburg (June 2024), as well as commissions for the Pompidou Center (June 2024), and for Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection in Paris (October 2024). Kurant’s monograph Collective Intelligence, co-edited by Stefanie Hessler and Jenny Jaskey will be published by Sternberg Press/ MIT Press in March 2024.
Leo Darwin Vogel
After receiving his PhD in genetics from the University of Cambridge, Johannes Vogel worked at the Natural History Museum in London and took up his appointments in Berlin in 2012. Since then, he has been working as the Director General of the Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research Berlin, and Professor of Biodiversity and Science Dialogue at the Humboldt University Berlin since 2012. He is also President of the European Citizen Science Association and advises the European Commission (Chair & member Open Science Policy Platform) and German Government (e.g. Bioeconomy Council, High-tech Forum, Chair of German Science year 2022 ‘Ask your Question’).
With a natural history collection of over 30 million objects and some 200 scientific staff, the museum is one of the largest research museums in the world. The Museums vision is to promote scientific and social dialogue to foster action for nature and democracy. It sees itself as a ‘political museum’ attracting up to one million visitors annually, 60% of which are young adults.
M. Scott Brauer
Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, an associate faculty at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, and the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed publications across developmental biology, computer science, and philosophy of mind.
His group works to understand information processing and problem-solving across scales, in a range of naturally evolved, synthetically engineered, and hybrid living systems. Dr. Levin’s work spans from fundamental conceptual frameworks to applications in birth defects, regeneration, and cancer.
