Mice and Men

23 May 2012
Of Mice and Men
Orkan Telhan

Life sciences made a recent return to the design scene. Day after day, we witness design evangelists promoting witty products, materials, and architecture that make use of living matter in unprecedented ways: Genetically-crafted mosquitoes fight against their own species to prevent Malaria; synthetic bacteria, when not making fuel, are put to work as low-cost cosmetics for the elderly; bricks made of synthetic fungi lay the walls of post-bio-mimicry architecture.
The Nature of Design is changing. It is becoming an interdisciplinary enterprise beyond form and function; a field of synthetic opportunism to serve up the last bit of molecules for grooming human needs and desires.

The Design of Nature is also changing. Apart from the sentimentalism towards pastoral days, nature, after its “synthetic turn,” is returning back as a molecular battlefield, where each species is trying to take back control from each other.

In this talk, I reflect on the changes that are fundamentally transforming our perception of design and nature today. I discuss a series of work in relation to recent advances in biological sciences and engineering. From living to semi-living, to the non-living, and, synthetically death, I will present new frontiers of design where new ways of composing, assembling, regulating, programming and tinkering life can be seen beyond cheap medicine, better-yielding crops, sustainable building materials or renewable energy, and offer a different logic of life.

Orkan Telhan is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and researcher whose investigations focus on the design of interrogative objects, interfaces, and media, engaging with critical issues in social, cultural, and environmental responsibility. Telhan is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts - Emerging Design Practices at University of Pennsylvania, School of Design. Telhan is working towards his PhD in Design and Computation at MIT School of Architecture and Planning. He was part of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Laboratory. He studied Media Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo and theories of media and representation, visual studies and graphic design at Bilkent University, Ankara. Telhan's individual and collaborative work has been exhibited in a number of venues including Ars Electronica, ISEA, LABoral, Archilab, Architectural Association, Architectural League/ NYC, and the MIT Museum.