biodesign

How can we make our indoor climate healthier by developing new materials from living organisms? Join us for this online meetup on April 2nd.

 

Fabricademy is a transdisciplinary course that focuses on new technologies applied to the textile field. Applications are now open.

 

An evening with Rosanne Hertzberger about bacteria in the human body and creating an low-oxygen environment.

 

Did you know that you can also follow the BioHack Academy online? All lessons are recorded and shown on the video channel.

 

On Friday, December 28th, at 4.30 pm Isabel Burr Raty will present her ongoing research project The Beauty Kit at M4gastatelier.

 

Roland van Dierendonck of Waag will give a workshop biohacking at Tetem in Enschede and at Culturhus Borne.

 

Students of the Master Industrial Design (MID) programme at the KABK have followed a BioPlastics workshop in the Waag.

 

Have a look at the projects of participants in the BioHack Academy, an international programme organised by Waag.

 

The Beauty Kit Female Farm is an eco-friendly cognitive-pleasure oriented farm that harvests female genital fluids to produce beauty bio-products.

 

In this participatory lecture performance by Isabel Burr Raty displays the beauty bio-products that she manufactures with genital female fluids.

 

During this event we will examine our own bodies as sensors with the help of artist Kuang-Yi Ku.

 

Journalists get inspired by the subjects that were brought up in the Dutch broadcast 'Zomergasten' by Marleen Stikker. What about that Wood Wide Web?

 

An exhibition by Pei-Ying Lin on the concept of 'virophilia': a love of viruses. At puntWG in Amsterdam West.

 

During this workshop we explore incorporating viruses into our cooking practices with 3Package Deal artist Pei-Ying Lin. What will our viral future look like?

 

An interview with artist-in-residence Pei-Ying Lin on becoming friendlier with viruses and the using them as ingredient in the kitchen.

 

This edition of the Critical Making workshop series focuses on extracting pigments from bacteria.

 

"Trust Me, I'm an Artist” is an internationally renowned series of events debating the ethical issues that arise when art meets science. Can and should an artist exhibit fragments of wild DNA that have the potential to cause antibiotic resistance in infectious diseases in order to raise awareness of this sublime existential risk?

 

Time, from the universal to the personal and from the cellular to the geological, even the astronomical. This exhibition explores different dimensions and scales of time, from the universal to the personal and from the cellular to the geological, even the astronomical.

 

Pieter van Boheemen (Open Wetlab and BioHack Academy) will participate in the Border Sessions festival on Technology & Society on November 11th, 2015 in The Hague. This session is called "Well, why shouldn’t I design with DNA? Do-It-Yourself Synthetic Biology at your local community center".

 

This is an exciting event within the Trust Me I’m an Artist project. Transmediale will host an ethics panel regarding the Cellular Propeller project by Howard Boland.

 

What use are hormones, to us, to others, to other species? What if you extract them yourself instead of leaving that to the pharmaceutical industry? What can you make? Cocktails, connections, corrections?

 

A two day workshop where you create a design, print this using a hacked 3D printer and organic material, which is a fertile breeding ground for a slime mould - see how the mold grows and redefines the shape of your structure. What happens when living organisms grow on designed structures made of organic, super fertile material, shaped by you?

 

Lucas Evers of Waag's Open Wetlab will speak at a BioArt & BioDesign meeting in Paris, France on 6 March 2014.

 

The Future of Art & Science Collaborations is a series of double lectures by eminent international researchers and practitioners from the field where art and science interact.

 

Artists and designers interested in the life sciences are invited to propose new projects for the Bio Art & Design Award 2018.

 

Science-Fictions consists of a workshop and a symposium at DesignLab Enschede with invited artists, scientists and philosophers to encounter and discuss new creations of biotechnologies.

 

During the Dutch Design Week 2017 you can visit the Embassy of Health to discover gene.coop. Gene.coop is a cooperative in which your DNA is stored and only made available to third parties under conditions determined by you.

 

MAD summerschool, sounds like a crazy summerschool but it actually stands for ‘Man and Design’ i.e. a design summerschool.

 

De biokunstenaars Xandra van der Eijk met ‘Seasynthesis’, Cheng Guo met ‘Anon. - An intervention in the Anthropocene’ en Jiwon Woo (USA) met ‘Mother's Hand Taste (Son-mat)’ zijn op vrijdag 19 mei uitgeroepen tot de winnaars van de Bio Art & Design Award 2017 (BAD Award).

 

Een avond met internationale kunstenaars Agi Haines (eerder artist-in-residence bij Waag), Steve Kurtz en René ten Bos, Denker des Vaderlands. Gezamenlijk bespreken zij de mogelijkheden en uitdagingen die zich aandienen nu de mens in staat is op celniveau het leven te herscheppen.

 

Thursday February 9, 2017 Oron Catts will give a lecture about tissues at MU artspace. The lecture is part of the public program underpinning the bioart and –design exhibition Fluid Matter, Liquid and Life in Motion, that presents an exploration of fluidity inside and between bodies, cells and substances.

 

At MU gallery in Eindhoven, the 7th edition of the Bio Art & Design Award shows works of the winning teams and several other works of bio art and bio design under the title Fluid Matter.

 

Fluid Matter presents the winning projects of the Bio Art and Design Award 2016 alongside several recent artworks that share a dimension of fluidity

 

We opened the Pet Shop Food Bar at the Waterlooplein in Amsterdam in November 2016. We investigated for one month how our micro-pets can contribute to the future of our food.

 

In Ectogenesis: Plant-Human Monsters, biologist and artist Špela Petrič (artist-in-residence at Waag) researches the possibility to create a hybrid organism between human and plant, using hormones as carriers of transgressing information. The artist developed her exhibition at the Open Wetlab of Waag. On 28 August (15-18.00 hrs), the opening of the exhibition will take place, including an interactive session.

 

Waag and Motherboard will host the Microlympic Games: the most and least exciting sports event in the world, where microbes play the key role.

 

The bio artists Lilian van Daal and Roos Meerman, Cecilia Jonsson and Pei-Ying Lin were announced on 20 May as the winners of the Bio Art & Design Award 2016 (BAD Award).

 

Heirloom is a project by artist Gina Czarnecki. The Heirloom project involves growing “skin portraits” of Czarnecki’s daughters.

 

The XTH Sense has launched on Kickstarter just recently. What can you do with this wearable? The XTH Sense harnesses the power of your body to let you interact with connected devices, musical and video software, games and virtual reality in a highly personalized and engaging way.

 

Xiamyra Daal will present our biotechnology activities of our Open Wetlab at the meeting 'Open Science. Iedereen doet mee' at SPUI25 in Amsterdam. This meeting is Dutch spoken.

 

Waag gives biotech artists and designers the opportunity to use our facilities and to present their work within our public programme.

 

Body of Matter presents the work of ten artists that advance our ideas about the body. They explore its materiality, stimulation, quantification using technology, integration with alien matter, and, finally, its obsolescence by simulation.

 

Lucas Evers (Open Wetlab) will be one of the guests in the programme Future Series at Pakhuis de Zwijger on 24 November, that looks back on the theme of the Dutch Design Week of 2015: ‘What if’.

 

Lucas Evers of our Open Wetlab will speak at a BIO·FICTION special on 7 November of the InScience festival in Nijmegen.

 

Our first micro-organisms concept store opened its doors during the DDW in Eindhoven and it was a huge success. The 275,000 visitors of the exhibition were curious to see our adorable micropets, learn about them and the ways in which they can take care of these little companions. Pet lovers were buying these little cuties for more than a week, showing their special interest in Slime Molds and Photobacterium Phosphoreum, which were completely sold out.

 

In 2015, we were part of the international Dutch Design Week again in Eindhoven. And for this occassion, we also replaced a part of our public activities to our Pet shop at the Klokgebouw, where it was all happening during the event.

 

Lucas Evers (head of Waag's Open Wetlab) moderates a DNA debate on 18 October 2015, as a result of the art installation Cellout.me by Jeroen van Loon. The artist is selling his DNA in his installation via the Internet for a year. What are the consequences of this, now and in the future? What is he actually selling? And what is it worth?

 

During the Museum night 2015 in Amsterdam, Waag opens the Late night pet shop in the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag. Get your microben now!

 

De Petshop is part of the Dutch Design Week 2015! Put the 14th edition of the Dutch Design Week in your diary! DDW 2015 takes place from 17 until 25 October.

 

Recently, the nominees and winners of the Royal Academy Awards 2015 in The Hague (KABK) were announced. The Academy Award Bachelor went to Eline van der Ploeg (Graphic Design), with a strong typographic work titled “Living Systems”. She developed her idea during the BioHack Academy of Waag. An explanation of the work can be found here.

 

Three projects, each worth 25.000 euros, have been selected as winners of the Bio Art & Design Award 2015 by an international jury on Friday May 22nd. A Dutch bioscientist is involved in the execution of each BAD Award winning project.



 

Vrijdag 22 mei vindt de finale van Bio Art & Design Award (BAD Award) 2015 plaats bij Stroom in Den Haag. De BAD Award (voorheen Designers & Artist 4 Genomics Award) is een unieke competitie met als doel jonge nationale en internationale kunstenaars en designers te laten experimenten met bioart en design in samenwerking met een vooraanstaand Nederlands research team.

 

In March 2014, Leonardo/Olats and Decalab were organising a conference on Bio art - bio design. At this occasion, Lucas Evers of Waag's Open Wetlab presented our activities.

 

In 2013, Chloé Rutzerveld organized, in collaboration with Waag's Open Wetlab, a very special dinner at the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag. Now, a richly illustrated cookbook has been published.

 

Developing ethical frameworks for artists, cultural institutions and audiences engaged in the challenges of creating and experiencing new art forms in biotechnology and biomedicine in Europe.

 

This book investigates new ethical issues arising through art and science collaboration and considers the roles and responsibilities of the artists, scientists and institutions involved. The projects decribed raise interesting questions for science ethics committees and help to reveal the mechanisms that drive this usually hidden process, enabling readers to understand the driving forces behind ethical decisions and the role of artists working in scientific settings more deeply.

 

Pigeons, human stem cells, fungi, cut-flowers – about anything that lives can serve as working material for bio art and design. In Matter of Life, Mu and guest curator William Myers present nine much-discussed research projects at the intersection of life sciences, art and design.

 

Pigeons, human stem cells, fungi, cut-flowers – about anything that lives can serve as working material for bio art and design. In Matter of Life, Mu and guest curator William Myers present nine much-discussed research projects at the intersection of life sciences, art and design.

 

Making paper and ink with the aid of bacteria? Sure! The participants of the 12th Do It Together Bio workshop at the Waag were not scared away by the strange smells of the bacteria. On the contrary. In no-time most of them were stirring away in jars filled with cellulose and pigment producing bacteria. It was such a lot that the smell of it lingered for a couple of days!

 

In the Summer of 2014 we were confronted with a newsitem mentioning that Satao, Kenya’s largest elephant, fell into the hands of poachers. Again, a natural monument of our planet was lost. Every year again thousands of elephants are killed for their tusks. Many people adore ivory for its unique qualities. Ignorant of the meaning and source of the material they do not realize that the trade in ivory is very cruel, redundant and will prove to be limited.

 

Exactly a year after the world's first in vitro hamburger was presented, the The In Vitro Meat Cookbook was published by BIS Publishers. Using the format of the cookbook as a storytelling medium, the In Vitro Meat Cookbook is a visually stunning exploration of the new “food cultures” lab-grown meat might create. This book approaches lab-grown meat not just from a design and engineering perspective, but also from a societal and ethical one.

 

Our Open Wetlab regularly has guests working at their projects in our lab. Recently, Matilde Losi from TU/e worked at her 'Host' project here.

 

Intervening in evolution by creating the perfect pigeon, food production from toxic waste and new habitats on the border of fresh and salt water in which the four cultures of people, plants, fish and shellfish come together. These three projects, each good for € 25,000, were proclaimed to be the winners of the Bio Art & Design Awards by the five-member international jury at NWO in The Hague.

 

On 16 May 2014 the three winners of the Bio Art & Design Award 2014 will be announced.

 

Thousands of elephants are slaughtered every year for their tusks. Ivory is still very popular, the pain the animal has suffered and the deaths that followed are not reflected in the decorative figurines that adorn homes and shrines. People do not realize what they have in their hands. But what if we could give a new meaning to the formation and origin of ivory?

 

In ‘Hybrids, Chimeras and other Monsters’ the goal was to step away from the yuk-factor, and to take a closer look at BioArt from artists like Guy Ben-Ary.

 

In February 2014, Waag's Wetlab brings a new series of three lectures by Joanna Jeśman at the Waag titled 'Living tissues and living issues', as a continuation of the series The Future of Art & Science Collaborations we started last year in October.

 

The Other Dinner was an experimental and interactive dinner that investigated our meat culture. We prepared and ate parts of the pig, cow, chicken or sheep that are normally intended for export or animal feed. Check out this video-report for a glimpse of the event.

 

The successful Designers & Artists For Genomics Award (DA4GA), the unique competition that encourages young artists internationally to discover and further develop the world of bio art and bio design, will be continuing under a new name: Bio Art & Design Award.

 

Experience 25 January 2014 what happens when living organisms grow on structures made of organic materials, intelligent slime molds colonize digitally printed designs.

 

On 14 December 2013 a special dinner was organized at the Waag: The Other Dinner, an experimental and interactive dinner that investigated the meat culture of the past, the present and the future.

 

Recently, I visited two exhibitions on the design of life. First I went to 'Project Genesis' during the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, and after that I visited the exposition 'Biodesign' at the Dutch Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. The cross pollinations between design, art and bio technology are exhibited more often these days, and I was curious if these two could surprise me.

 

Until 15 December 2013, the exhibition of the winners of the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award was on display in Leiden. Just the day after the opening, the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant already published a nice review of the special exhibition.

 

Genetically modified embryos of Zebrafish injected with GMO algae are playing an important role in the artwork Errorarium by Adam Zaretsky.

 

Three years ago the project called 'Cell explorer' was amongst the finalists of the first edition of the DA4GA (2010/2011). Unfortunately they didn't win but did succeed in finding partners (the UMCG and RUG) that supported them to realize the project.

 

DA4GA stands for Designers & Artists for Genomics Award. This unique Dutch contest brings art, design and life sciences together. Teams of scientists and artists are working with living material in their projects. This year, three projects were awarded: Living Mirror, Fish Bone Chapel and Ergo Sum.

 

On 21 June 2013 we launched the Makers Guild at the Waag in Amsterdam.

 

Bio artist Adam Zaretsky constantly finds himself on the edge of the legally permissible. His Errorarium, for example, is home to zebra fish embryos injected with algae. The aim is that these embryos grow up to be completely self-sustaining fish and that they can make food from sunlight just as plants do.

 

At Do it Together Bio #4 on 3 April 2013 we worked with Aliibrio ficheri, bacteria that are bioluminescence, made 3D prints with living material and we built a bioprinter from old HP printers after the model by BioCurious at Instructables. During the workshop artist Allison Kudla told about her work and Branislav Misovic and Jelle Boomstra shared their experiences with 3D printing of living tissue.

 

Quantified Self (QS) stands, in short, for measuring yourself. Using tools to translate your behaviour in data. On Monday March 4th Waag hosted the Amsterdam meetup.

 

During the exhibition Yes Naturally, on 19 March 2013 the symposium BioSolar Cells will be held. Marleen Stikker is one of the guests.

 

Yes Naturally is an art exhibition at the GEM Museum for Contemporary Art, Fotomuseum and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag raising the fundamental question: What is natural? And who or what decides? International artists present new viewpoints, challenge old patterns and encourage sustainable behavior.

 

In the exhibition Still Unidentified Objects Transnatural explores new, still ‘unidentified’ forms of collaboration between man, machine and nature. The exhibition looks at fresh ideas & design ending up in new results by joint forces and combined smartness with benefits for all parties involved (rather than just for humans).

 

In the presence of the public artist Charlotte Jarvis donated blood, urine and skin tissue, to be used by Mummery’s group of stem cell research at the Hubrecht Institute. The living cells found in those substances will be medical metamorphosed into induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) and after that into totally different sorts of bodily tissue of the artist: brain cells, blood vessel cells and hart cells, thereby creating a half-life portrait or semi-living portrait of the artist in a life support system yet to be designed.

 

In the third edition of Do It Together Bio you are invited to explore the data potential of urine. In a workshop, participants will consider the energy potential of urine and what this might reveal about processes within the body. The workshop will be led by Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret, former winners of DA4GA.

 

Donating human tissue to create a doppelganger. A performance, lecture and debate by artist Charlotte Jarvis and Christine Mummery, winners of DA4GA 2012. Witness the first part of a second self coming to life.

 

The documentary Talking Plants & Morning Urine follows three young designers after winning the Designers and Artists 4 Genomics Award (DA4GA).

 

Bulletproof skin, Exploring Boundaries by Piercing Barriers, a beautiful book of art & writing about project 2.6g 329m/s.

 

The antlers on the wall on either side of the hall come from all over the world. The same thing goes for the audience - young men and women with fast glasses or flashy lipstick are sitting beside men in suit or a casual sweater. There is tension in the air. We are in the ‘Pesthuis’ at Naturalis for the announcement of the winners of the third edition of the Designers & Artists for Genomics Award, which rewards leading bio-art initiatives.

 

Mutamorphosis is an eclectic conference with over a hundred speakers with a background in art, science and activism. Last week a second edition was held in Prague, after the first successful meeting in 2007, of which all information can be found online. Themes are crisis, uncertainty, complexity and cognition; the format exists of panels of three of four speakers with a discussion.

 

On 6 December 2012, the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Awards were handed out. This unique Dutch contest brings art, design and life sciences together.

 

We’re making a fresh start with our Open Wetlab on November 16th. We'll be working with do-it-yourself biologists on bottom-up innovation: new machines, techniques and protocols – often cheaper than regular lab equipment, like a low-cost malaria tester. Anyone with an interest in biology and life sciences can get started in our lab.

 

This September we launched the 3rd edition of the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award. Thursday December 6th the 13 finalists present their proposal to the public and our jury announces the three winning projects.

 

PICNIC Festival 2012 opens its doors a day earlier this year for an OFF PICNIC program on Sunday 16 September that is open to the public. E.g. Transnatural, DUS architects, the MuseumApp, FIBER, Cities and Waag are featured in the program and welcome you to join this pre-festival.

 

Last Friday the premiere of ‘PostNatural Organisms of the European Union’ took place in Amsterdam at Waag.

 

While there may be a limit to what is achievable there is no limit to what we strive for. In respect of this Transnatural festival 2012 goes in search of technology that can support, as opposed to desecrate, the natural world and ecological wealth. The art, design and technology festival will be launched on September 7, 2012 in Science Center NEMO in Amsterdam and consists of an exhibition, a two-day conference, and a weekend full of performances and music.

 

From now until mid-September 2012 the arcade machine ('Errorarium') of Adam Zaretsky in which plants are grown can be found in the 'Wintertuin' of Hortus botanicus Leiden. This machine contains the model plant for DNA testing: Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana). Several selections of this kind can be stimulated by visitors with light and sound in order to let their chlorophyll come to work.

 

The Center for PostNatural History and Waag present: PostNatural Organisms of the European Union. A 21st Century Wunderkammer in the tradition of anatomist Frederik Ruysch back in the Waag, featuring altered life forms.

 

The opening of the new Designers & Artists 4 Genomics exhibition is a fact! In the crowded Life Science room in Naturalis, the winning teams of designers/artists and scientists were put in the spotlight.

 

The Designers & Artists 4 Genomics exhibition shows fore award-winning art projects that will amaze our visitors and prompt lots of questions. The artists use living materials obtained from genomics institutes that are studying the genes of humans, animals, plants and micro-organisms.

 

The Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award (DA4GA) highlighted and explored the exciting and novel possibilities between design, artistic practice and Life Sciences.

 

The goal of the project Studiolab - Utopian Practices was to reinforce the inter and transdisciplinary cooperation between the arts and science, to innovate the public debate on bio technology.

 

In 2009, bio artist Adam Zaretsky and Waag researched and discussed Life Sciences during his residency with a wide audience, but also with artists, designers and scientists.