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==== Fringejoyride Residency Review ==== | ==== Fringejoyride Residency Review ==== | ||
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+ | A reflection on a micro-residency by [[http:// | ||
< | < | ||
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== How do you define ‘biotechnology? | == How do you define ‘biotechnology? | ||
- | I stopped dead. This was the beginning presentation to my week’s intensive Micro-Residency at Fo:AM. 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 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… |
== Are you sure that’s not just ‘biology’, | == Are you sure that’s not just ‘biology’, | ||
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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 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 came to Fo:AM 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 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. |
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 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? | ||
- | == So invasive species are the Bioluddite’s biotechnology? | + | == So invasive species are the Bioluddite’s biotechnology? |
- | (Because previously invasive species were a scientific glitch) | ||
I'd been fascinated by the story of the Luddites and the sense of ‘city pride’ the history had brought to Nottingham. Luddites were 19th century activists making a stand to save their traditional social models and critiqued the profit driven production processes enabled by machines in the Industrial Revolution. But nowdays, being a ‘luddite’ is commonly interpreted as someone that doesn’t use twitter, or a smart phone or, according to www.urbandictionary.com : | I'd been fascinated by the story of the Luddites and the sense of ‘city pride’ the history had brought to Nottingham. Luddites were 19th century activists making a stand to save their traditional social models and critiqued the profit driven production processes enabled by machines in the Industrial Revolution. But nowdays, being a ‘luddite’ is commonly interpreted as someone that doesn’t use twitter, or a smart phone or, according to www.urbandictionary.com : | ||
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I proposed that perhaps the modern relevance of Luddites would lie more suitably in the world of my broader, everyday human experience definition of biotechnology because biotechnology is pervasive in our everyday lives and most of the time outside of our control. Perhaps Bio-luddites could help to navigate society in the overwhelmingly vast spectrum of biotechnology that we depend upon and in finding a 21st Century model of performing the principles of Ludditism, become a role model of a new form of activism that gives productive benefits on top of the critics to the modern society? | I proposed that perhaps the modern relevance of Luddites would lie more suitably in the world of my broader, everyday human experience definition of biotechnology because biotechnology is pervasive in our everyday lives and most of the time outside of our control. Perhaps Bio-luddites could help to navigate society in the overwhelmingly vast spectrum of biotechnology that we depend upon and in finding a 21st Century model of performing the principles of Ludditism, become a role model of a new form of activism that gives productive benefits on top of the critics to the modern society? | ||
- | If the above wasn’t ambitious enough, I was also hoping to convert | + | If the above wasn’t ambitious enough, I was also hoping to convert |
== Have you read A Biopunk’s Manifesto? == | == Have you read A Biopunk’s Manifesto? == | ||
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== That was just day one….== | == That was just day one….== | ||
- | For the remaining week, The Fo:AM and I pursued through every data source possible and my previous hidden, disorganized, | + | For the remaining week, The FoAM and I pursued through every data source possible and my previous hidden, disorganized, |
- | The Amish used religion, | + | The Amish used religion,\\ |
- | The Luddites used military power, | + | The Luddites used military power, |
- | The Neoluddites (except for its association with the infamous Unibomber) used literature. | + | The Neoluddites (except for its association with the infamous Unibomber) used literature.\\ |
In order to socialize luddism in our age of peer-to-peer and TED Talks, the Bioluddites would look like no average activist. In fact, their roles would fit more into the modern-day life-coaches/ | In order to socialize luddism in our age of peer-to-peer and TED Talks, the Bioluddites would look like no average activist. In fact, their roles would fit more into the modern-day life-coaches/ | ||
- | In our public presentation for the Research Gathering, we outsourced brainstorming on the attendees along with biotech question-themed foods by with our list of real-life conundrums surrounding | + | In our public presentation for the Research Gathering, we outsourced brainstorming on the attendees along with biotech question-themed foods by with our list of real-life conundrums surrounding |
- | Bioluddites | + | Bioluddites |
- | Did I manage to convert | + | Did I manage to convert |
< | < | ||
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* [[notes on the luddites]] | * [[notes on the luddites]] | ||
* [[http:// | * [[http:// | ||
- | * [[https:// | + | * [[https:// |
* [[:/ | * [[:/ | ||
* [[:/ | * [[:/ | ||