Venice, Italy is sinking. To save it, Dr. Rachel Armstrong in her TED talk argues we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself.
Related: Modernistic vs Next Nature architecture, Growing rooms, buildings & cities, How to print a building, Superman’s House. Thanks Jan Gillesen.
According to research carried out by scientists from the Columbia Environmental Research Centre, sewage water containing hormones and pesticides caused by human consumption is leading fish all over America to change gender. Within this phenomenon, male fish are turning partly-female, and are starting to produce female eggs. What it is exactly that is causing the gender-ambiguity in specific fish, and at what rate, is still to be proven. However, the scientists argue that part of the reason comes from hormones, such as birth control pills.
One might wonder how exactly this phenomenon can be understood in terms of being ‘Next Nature’, but it seems to reflect ‘nature caused by human culture’ in the sense that it perhaps lies exactly in between our ability to control ‘old nature’ and turn it into products (birth control pills) and the phenomenon of culture (the common use of extra hormones) getting so out of control that it leads to unexpected consequences.
Via: www.sueddeutsche.de
Will we in the future still buy several needs according food in shops, or will we grow M&M’s ourselves? There is a lot happening on in the field of food technology, think for example of special cloned cow species or ‘extremely tasteful’ designers vegetables. We are radically intervening with Darwin’s survival of the fittest, since society strives to select and process the ‘best’ and ‘strongest’ species and types themselves – often based on commercial values.
According the magazine cover of Food & Wine in October 2105 the process of ‘creating’ food in factories will be outdated; next nature will grow the hyperfood itself. With a little help of technology the food/culture that society created will be combined with what we traditionally consider as nature. Think for example of the extensive use of photosynthesis to increase production of food, as they will become little factories. But also about processing design food via a biological way that for the present can only happen via complex chemical processes, e.g. the production of M&M’s through the genetic manipulating of beans. Furthermore, the special 22nd-century edition of Food & Wine explains that food will become more effective, healthy and ‘powerful’ by the integration of new developed vitamins and medicines. These will not only give us extra energy but will also power the electronic devices we use, since these will become a part of our body we’ll have to feed them as well.
Will in 2105 all factories where they produce food become redundant? And how will the physical status of future humans react upon the extra healthy food they will consume, shall it improve lifestyle in a way illness can be prevented? Fortunately or not, this cover is still merely a fantasy, hence we still have some degrees of freedom in what direction we want food design to develop. 
Related: Food design in the 21th century, The meat of tomorrow, a square fishstick, dinosaur nuggets, organic coca-cola, hyper fruit, cloned meat, potato-free potato chips, frankenwein, vegetarian hamburgers, hypernatural tomatoes, Who designed the banana?, How to grow an Orangina Bottle.
Though the example product seems a little far-fetched; growth assembly could be quite revolutionary. Worldwide shipping of manufactured things is very inefficient. Why not ship devices and utensils in a single envelope? As seeds.
“Our idea of industry will grow to include nature. Genetically altered organisms will be an everyday thing. Introducing diversity and softness to a realm once dominated by heavy manufacturing. Shops will evolve into factory farms. Licenced products are grown where sold. We will no longer ship products around the world. Only seeds will be shipped as they contain all the manufacturing instructions encoded in their dna.”
No, this is not some solar system far, far away. Closer than you think, this is is a visualization of a botnet storm. For all you know this malicious virus, or one of its siblings, is controlling your computer – spamming thousands of innocent internet users on your behalf – at this moment. Feeling paranoid already? Yes, next nature can be harsh sometimes.
If the six hour crash course on synthetic genomics is a bit too much for you, there is always a more snappy TED lecture in which Craig Venter ponders on whether we can create new life out of our digital universe. Needles to ask what his answer is.
Dr. Venter now has a database now with about 20 million genes and thinks of them as the design components of the future. In little over half an hour the audience is walked through the latest endevours in synthetic genomics.
His talk covers topics like: How to boot up a chromosome. How he plans to replace the petrochemical energy with bacteria that turn CO2 into energy. How to take security measures. Why people who think of evolution as just one gene changing at the time have missed much of biology. And why it is a mistake to think they are trying to create life from scratch, as they are merely playin on one of the key principles of nature: all life derives from other life.
Nature changes along with us and it is changing fast. Buckle up for a catalyst of evolution.
Related: Build a better being, DNA Synthesizer, Top 10 new organisms, Mapping the DNA world, Google DNA, Poetry of Genetics, Crash course on synthetic genomics, How biotech will drive our evolution, Human genetic DNA sequencing soon child play?.
Old nature provided us with a wide variety of food: fresh milk, crispy vegetables, nutritious meat. Yet this is not enough, we want more:
We want a printed steak, square fishsticks, dinosaur nuggets, organic coca-cola, hyper fruit, cloned meat, potato-free potato chips, frankenwein, vegetarian hamburgers and hypernatural tomatoes. We want vitamine+Q10 yoghurt that makes you loose weight. We want to hear the sound of a sausage when we bite it – we want notice how well designed that sausage sound really is.
Already for thousands of years people have been food designers. How will food technology develop itself into the 21th century? The Philips Food Design Probes investigate how we will eat and source our food in the future, like in 15 to 20 years. There are 3 products we might have in our homes by then:
Looking at a banana from a design perspective, one immediately notices the fruit is highly ergonomic and sophisticated: Bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, they come with a non-slip surface, a bio-degradable packaging that is easy to open, and they have an advanced informative skin that turns yellow when the product is ready for consumption – green means not yet, brown means too late.
The design of the banana is so good, some evangelists – like the one in the video – present it as evidence that an ‘intelligent designer’ must have created the fruit. These evangelists however, makes a quintessential mistake on the static origins of ‘nature’, as they ignore that the bananas we eat today are hardly products of old nature. Rather, they are the result of thousands of years of domestication by people.
Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that banana cultivation goes back to at least 5000 BCE. The design banana’s we eat cannot even reproduce without the hand of man, as they have no seeds – they are all clones, which makes the species highly vulnerable to diseases.
Wild bananas are still around, yet they are much less ergonomically adjusted for human consumption as they have have numerous large, hard seeds. Perhaps in the far future evangelists will present coke bottles as evidence for their ‘intelligent designer’ argument?
Related: A designers take on intelligent design, Banana Juice box, Banana inspired harddisk casing. Thanks Billy.
Our peculiar image of the week was created by artist Levi van Veluw, who reinvents the classical fine art of landscape painting, by moving from the traditional ‘oil on canvas’ to the use of his own face as a canvas.
By combing the romantic landscape and self-portrait genres he gives a fresh twist to the obsession inherent in the romantic landscape of recreating the world and simultaneously being part of it.
Look around you and try to find the most natural object in the room you are in now. It is you.
Related: In the Wilderness, Phone Trees, Day in the Dutch dunes, Biopresence: Human DNA trees.
A Chinese farmer, Gao Xianzhang, has invented baby-shaped buddha pears and he is planning to export his idea. The produce became a success in his local province since people seem to think the pear gives them good luck. He has created a series of 10,000 this season and plans to take the fruits of his labour to the UK and Europe.
Fresh from the Pharm
Food design in the 21th century
Who designed the banana?
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