Hidden Poetics Of Consumption
Designer: Tang Meichen
· BIG Idea & Vision
After a lot of research, the insight into the relationship between the biological age, the commercial market and modern young people with slime mold has promoted the thinking of my work.
Overview
The pandemic in 2020 confirm again that we are in the midst of a biological age. Under this background, an incredible microbe, slime mold, enters human society due to the Internet. On Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing website and 78% users are under 25, the most well-known content creator of slime mold Ye Weijun has millions of fans, ten million total plays and a microbial pet Taobao store.
As you can see, slime molds have successfully entered the human commercial market from the biological world, especially the younger one. Meanwhile, “cost-effective experts - sample economy” , “appearance is justice”,” fond of domestic goods”, "healthy eating promoter” and “niche market - personal aesthetic” are typical symbols of the future main consumer represented by the post-90s generation. And MINISO is the most representative brand for them. All in all, by combining slime mold and symbolic objects, all the works aim to show the connection insight among biology, business and young people and reflect the quite different lifestyle and value orientation of young people.
On one hand, scientific discoveries, cell theory, the origin of species, genetic laws lead human society to the biological world step by step. The emergence of major conventions and conferences gradually regulates our use of biological forces. And the pandemic in 2020 also became a catalyst for us to confirm again that we are in the midst of a biological age.
Therefore, thanks to the advent of the biological era, microorganisms like slime molds can enter human society as pets.
On the other hand, according to the investigation, it is found that the slime mold is the most popular microbiosphere at bilibili. The most well-known content creator Yewei jun has more than 200 videos and millions of fans. As we can see from the statistical chart on the right, all video data has grown exponentially in just over a year, and the total number of plays has exceeded 10000000.
Simultaneously, Yeweijun also set up the network's first microbial pet Taobao store in December 2018. Such a seemingly unpopular, boring and even bizarre online store has a monthly sales volume of 200 + or even 300 +. It can be seen that slime molds have successfully entered the human commercial market from the biological world, or more precisely, the consumer market for young people.
So a small microbe skillfully connects biology, business and young people through the Internet. And I have a more in-depth investigation and analysis of each part.
Moreover, since the economic reform and opening up of China, we are all at the stage of upgrading to personalized consumption. The future main consumer force represented by the post-90s generation has a new consumer demand and value orientation. Studied the reports of McKinsey, CBN and other platforms and companies, I summed up 11 keywords to reflect the core consumption trend of the post-90s generation.
New demand means new brands, of which nothing is more representative than MINISO. I am a loyal consumer of this brand. First of all, it is very attractive to me in terms of performance-to-price ratio. Its products are concentrated in department stores of 10-100 yuan, which are affordable but of good quality. In addition, the visual style of Japanese aesthetics satisfies my eyes very well. At the same time, MINISO is always packed with people of my age. It can be seen that MINISO have indeed captured the new consumers represented by the post-90s generation, so they have successfully obtained 18 billion incomes annually.
·Technology & Material Innovation
Before the physical production, I conducted a more comprehensive survey of slime molds and began to raise them.
After that, I did a material experiment to find a form that not only allows the slime mold to survive, but also expresses the theme and satisfies the visual aesthetic.
During the experiment, I found that I used a kind of Agar as the base, and then put the cultured slime mold on top, and the slime mold would crawl all over the container on the basis of the Agar bottom. This form gives me a lot of creative space.
These photos recorded all three processes of feeding slime mold, including awaken, grow and decay.
·Physical Production
01 Fond of Domestic Goods
With the rise of popularity of the national brand, the post-90s recognize more domestic products and are enthusiastic about buying them. In the 2018 VIPSHOP list, 60% of the domestic cosmetics brands were purchased by the post-90s generation. In 2020, perfect diary sold 500 million topped the list of best-selling domestic brands of skin care and cosmetics on Taobao on Singles Day in 2020.
02 Cost-effective Experts: Sample Economy & Appearance Is Justice
First of all, the post-90s are a group of consumers who are on the rise in both consumption and career. They value high performance-to-price ratio. And such characteristics give birth to the “sample economy”. For a luxury cosmetic product which costs about 1000 yuan, the price of the small sample usually costs only 20-100 yuan. The low cost and high quality satisfy the the post-90s generation according to the consumer psychology. So in 2020, they spent more than 10 million purchasing the sample setsin the Singles Day, a Chinese shopping holiday
03 Healthy Eating Promoter
In McKinsey’s 2020 China Consumer Survey report, 60% of post-90s generation regularly check the ingredients of packaged foods and buy foods that looks more healthy. such as oats. Concepts such as "healthy and natural ", "sugar-free" and "organic" are also the preferred factors. Coincidentally, slime molds from nature also take pure natural oats as the main food.
04 Niche Market - Personal Aesthetic
Finally, the post-90s have a wide range of hobbies.They will spend money on their personal interests. Compared with the post-70s and post-80s generation, the post-90s generation spend more on items that decorate the home and improve the living environment For example, the purchase of the vases by post-90s increased by 59% in 2018. . The number for the post-80s generation is 31%, and the post-70s generation is only 14%. For the same reason, I bought these non-essential goods in MINISO, including aromatherapy products and glass covers. The recognition of niche markets is also closely related to the rise of the slime mold pet market.
·Expression and Curation
In the exhibition part, I chose to create a pop-up store in MINISO. In a field where the main consumer is 18-35 years old and meets the consumption needs and values of young people, the whole work is displayed in an attempt to arouse the curiosity and resonance of the younger generation.
Microorganism：Living Memory
Designer: Chen Yage
· BIG Idea & Vision
“What actually is microbe?”
Microbe is micro organism that not visible to the naked eye, or small protozoa including bacteria, viruses and fungi.
However, does microbe has other, richer meanings for different people? I try to understand the microbe by my own language. And make some interdisciplinary combination of microbiology and jewelry design. Throughout my works, I took microbe as a recording media and material and with jewelry as a carrier to seal up our memories.
And for that, I did an experiment. I used jewelry technique to inset a pearl on the nutrient agar plate for microbe culturing. During this process, my hand would press this agar plate inevitably and bring microbes from my hand to this plate. From this point of view, this is an agar plate that take record of my insetting process and information.
As the essence of life as well as a common material for jewelry making, when inset on the nutrient agar plate for microbe cultivation, it is like the pearl is growing with microbe, with the natural jewelry growing out.
From the other point of view, is not our skin growth a kind of “insetting”? What I have touched, what I have been through leave marks on my hand then grow on our skin. From this angle, microbes can also be a kind of language that recording our experiences and states.
Thinking transformation：
The growth of microbe not only took record of events but also the change of environment. Maybe there are more unseen information beyond that.
In the past, if we wanted to express the relationship between human and microbe. We tended to use jewelries or some other products to express our thinking. But this time I realized microbe itself could also be a form of expression. Microbe could also be a language. We could record our experiences by using microbe to reflect the link between people and event and express our thinking. Microbe is living memory, we can see a lot of things through it, maybe not just our memories, but also other information.
When everything is sealed up slowly and represented in front of us in visualization.
·Research and Interview
When I try to record something by microbe.
At first, what I wanted to express is more private. I wanted to express the memory about my childhood. But with more profound thinking, I associated this with our life change since the epidemic. Wuhan is my hometown. The lockdown caught us by surprise, together with academic stress, all made these months particularly long. I stick with pressure all day long. That is when I wanted to record all of these, to see how is everybody’s life during the epidemic. I use video interview and research to assist my creations. And I interviewed people from different professions, to talk about the changes in their life.
During the interview, I collected the microbes on interviewees’ fingerprints and personal belongings. Then I cultivated them. (The process of interview and the cultivation was very safe.)
Interview record：Delivery Man
Interview record：Returned Student
Interview record：Food Street Pedlar
Interview record：College Students
Interview record：Courier
Teachers of Training Institution
Before the interview, I initially believed that there were drastic changes in everyone’s life. But as the interview continued, I gradually realized those more real and more specific changes in their life. But not just those in my imagination.
·Material Test
Alginate Impression Material & Epoxy Resin Adhesive
Nutrient Agar Plate & Epoxy Resin Adhesive
Nutrient Agar Plate with Different Concentrations
UV Curing Adhesive & Spherical Model
Nutrient Agar Plate & Epoxy Resin Adhesive
Wire & Resin
Alginate Impression Material & Human Body Mould
Nutrient Agar Medium & UV Curing Adhesive
Nutrient Agar Medium & Light Effect
·Physical Production
After many different attempts, I made some “microbial bubbles”.
On one hand, I wanted to show the hollow, closed, illusory and fragile state of isolation during the epidemic. We are separated by the epidemic. Everyone is an individual and every bubble is an “us”. On the other hand, we were actually surrounded by microbes and viruses during epidemic.
The end product took root and became what we see right now after a long-term practice. Was everything fall into place？Maybe it was. When I feeling it, touching it, when the delicate living leaving traces on my fingertips with flowers blooming on my hand.
·Expression and Display
As the sunlight penetrated though the bubbles with glistening ripples. The outline of the city was shined upon the microbial community, witnessing the changes in our life during the epidemic quietly.
Delivery drivers（fingerprint）
College student（fingerprint、pendant）
Food street pedlar（fingerprint、palm）
City Silhouette 《Microorganism：Living Memory》 necklace
Quarantine《Microorganism：Living Memory》 necklace
Microbe can talk. We do not need to say a lot. We do not need any other mediums, microbe itself is the natural “jewelry” growing on our body. It has recorded everything. For sure we can use it to record post epidemic memories and express other things more. It has already “inset” in our life, recording the changes of our states, of our surrounding and various information we weren’t aware of in our life. A point suddenly occurs to me：“When I want to eat something, it is probably not I really want it. But the germs inside my body telling me that they need it.” We coexist with microbes. We cannot live without them. And our relation with them is far closer than you could ever think.
We see a totally different world out of the same medium from different angles. From the perspective of jewelry, we see different microbe. We “redefined” microbe from the perspective of jewelry. And from the perspective of microbe, microbe can also be used to expand the boundary of jewelry.
From microbes to jewelry, let us rediscover it all...
——《Microorganism: Living Memory》
Climate Digital Change
Designer: Ni Erlu
·BIG idea and Vision
There is no doubt that you must be familiar with the concept of the Anthropocene, which is a new geological period proposed by scientists. Besides, it may enter the official geological age representative soon. The Anthropocene is defined as the influence of human beings on the earth.
Anthropocene actually means irreversible destruction, disaster and even doom. How can we find opportunities for coexistence on the devastated ruins when our civilization has become an unrepeatable experiment and when we are doomed not to return to the pastoral past?
Did you know that as one of the oldest creatures on earth, lichens opened up wasteland and expanded soil for all later plants and animals 600 million years ago. Lichen produced the most primitive soil and bringing hope for life to the earth. Many parts of the earth were still in extreme environments, but lichens lived very well.
The atomic bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Chernobyl nuclear leak on April 26, 1986, the nuclear weapon explosion and leak may be the closest day to "the end of the world” in human history. However, lichens are still alive on the doomsday ruins contaminated by bombings they bring almost impossible hope.
However, lichens with strong environmental adaptability have high requirements for environmental quality. It is very sensitive to car exhaust, acid rain, and sulfur dioxide. We found that only in 2018, man-made sulfur dioxide pollution hotspots released a total of nearly 30 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which was equivalent to the sulfur dioxide released by more than 300 volcanoes. It brought great harm to human health and the survival of lichens.
In the past 2020, the warming of the global climate system accelerated, the phenological phase advanced, the Antarctic glacier melted sharply, and the rate of sea level rise accelerated. A number of historical records have been refreshed and the climate has become more extremeWhere should mankind go when the sea level of global warming rises, engulfing the entire continent; when human wars continue, nuclear weapons are abused, and countless places have become places that human beings cannot live?
Global nitrogen deposition has increased rapidly in recent years. It is estimated that the global nitrogen deposition may reach twice the critical load of global nitrogen by 2050. The three regions with the highest nitrogen deposition in the world are Europe, Asia and the United States at present. The rapid increase of nitrogen deposition affects the lichen first, it further affects terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
In 2005, the European Space Agency took lichens into space for stress resistance experiments, completely exposed them to open space, and then sent them back to Earth half a month later. To our surprise, the metabolic activity of the two lichens was restored. Therefore lichens are likely to be the vanguard of changing the extremely harsh environment of other planets.
The apocalyptic lichen represents a glimmer of optimism, and it seems to remind us that it is better to find ways to symbiosis with nature instead of falling into despair. On the one hand, lichens, as the pioneers of the earth, the survivors of the Hiroshima ruins bombed by nuclear weapons, lichen may even become the pioneers of our immigration to extraterrestrials, bringing hope to mankind.
On the other hand, lichen is a symbiote of algae and fungi and they depend on each other to grow together. They better know how to exchange resources and cooperate with other species because of their strong ability to survive. A path of survival can also be opened up in some extreme environments. They represent the values of "coexistence of heaven and man".
Lichens cannot be cultivated artificially, but they can easily adapt to the natural geology ｜eroded by human beings. In addition, lichen can survive in extreme environment, but it is easily destroyed by man. In a word, it is a game and dialogue between natural force and artificial force.
Taking lichen as a starting points and through a whole information map generated by points and numbers,I intends to to provide inspiration for the symbiosis of human beings and nature. The process of making the information map is also a process of re-establishing the relationship, point patterns represent lichens and numbers represent the environmental impact of human beings on the earth. The objects left behind by human activities are also "unknowns" that invade the natural body at the same time when human beings name the natural substances that they have not yet understood as "unknowns". These data are just cold numbers for people, but they are foreign bodies that break the ecology and break the balance of lichen survival.
Doomsday Commensal Program - Structure of Main Diagram
The whole information map is divided into four layers: the lower two layers are the natural forces represented by lichens, and the upper layers are the artificial forces represented by human beings. In addition, the four digital units represent the four forces of human influence on geology. Besides, the x-axis presents the story of six time stages in the time dimension. In the meanwhile, the y-axis direction complements the spatial geographic information. Digital twins symbolizes a game between the vitality of lichens and human behavior. Sometimes the two reach the balance of harmonious coexistence, sometimes compromise and sometimes opposition, which just like a dialogue.
Climate Digital Twin diagram (click to see the details)
·Technology Innovation
"Data" has a strong algorithmic or scientific meaning and may frighten people who are not familiar with it. As a consequence, I need to shape the data into my language. I personify the data graph and design ways to connect numbers with what they really represent: knowledge, behavior, man and nature after parameterizing the point relationship with Touch Designer. "
Parameterizing with Touch Designer-Top view
Parameterizing with Touch Designer-Left view and front view
Parameterizing with Touch Designer·Physical Production
Moreover, I was eager to make the transition from the visualization of information to the experience of information in order to construct the viewing perspective and experience for the viewer in the third dimension. In addition, I intends to place the pattern of the plane in the space to make it a large-scale art installation with a sense of experience.
Practical Manufacture - 1:1 Scale Model
3D Printing Model
The viewer looks up and down, feeling the dialogue, opposition and symbiosis between lichens and human beings represented by several points when shuttling through the undulating data space. Finally, I intends to provide the viewer with a more immersive experience by providing contact with the content.
Interaction between viewers and the installation
·Curate for Environment
As a commemorative large art installation, it will be placed in the forest outside the restricted area in the Chernobyl , and the most polluted urban park , and also the fastest melting Antarctic glacier in 2020.
The forest outside the restricted area in the Chernobyl
The forest outside the restricted area in the Chernobyl
The fastest melting Antarctic glacier in 2020The infographic with lichens as the starting point reminds people that the way of human survival may not be just about conquest and control at a time before we cannot avoid the end of the earth and become ruins.
Post naturalistic poetics:
Climate SkinDesigner: Guo Yizhuo
· BIG Idea & Vision
Part of the work "skin of the polar night"In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Future Deep Civilization series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" path. natural" path.
Overview
The extremes of climate may be forcing the evolution of new adaptive anomalies in a warming and drying planet, influenced by human activity. In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Future Deep Civilization series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" path. natural" path. In an age of pan-technology, where wild nature is disappearing and the relationship between the individual and nature is being transformed, humans are turning themselves into technologized beings, optimally combining us with certain organisms through genome editing to create more powerful biological chimeras. This future may be complex and lacking in pro-life nature. Thinking about it from another perspective, perhaps the real use of AI lies in helping us repurpose genes and organisms to achieve symbiosis, enabling a model of hybridization that is mutually beneficial to humans. Incorporating the genetic information of endangered plants and animals into our lineage, becoming their maintainers and information carriers, and achieving co-dominance between humans and nature may be the way to survive in the future.
Extreme climates and environments are not far from us.For example, in 2020 there were many anomalies - hailstorms in many parts of China, and the lowest temperatures ever recorded at weather stations in 51 provinces. Australia saw forest fires due to dryness, and the Antarctic saw a rare 20 degrees Celsius.National Weather Service data predicts that in 2027, average precipitation in the United Kingdom will increase more wetly, while Portugal will be drier.Among which the melting of glaciers was very frightening, causing seawater to back up and releasing ancient viruses, which could easily cause the Earth to enter the Little Ice Age, the arrival of the last Little Ice Age caused not only a drop in temperature, but also famine and plagues and riots, even in the Ming Dynasty when technology was not advanced enough, which caused the population to halve and the death rate to rise.
According to the Ncar data, it can be seen that the anomalous sea temperature, the increase of sea ice and the anomalous sunspot activity in the last 30 years, which is predicted to enter a period of minimal sunspots in 10 years, are also important causes of the last Little Ice Age.
Evolution is still happening here and nowIn the early 1990s, author Dougal Dixon published a cult novel "Man after man" (After Man: An anthropologist of the Future) in which he predicted the possible new evolutionary development of human beings in order to adapt to the ecological environment in a century. In the book "After Man: An anthropologist of the Future", it is predicted that 200 years later, the aquatic human-aquamorph, each physical feature-the streamlined body with the smooth skin and the insulating blubber layer, the gills on the chest , the paddles on the legs-was grown by the embryo.Although Dixon's book is a fictional novel, most biologists agree that the Earth millions of years from now will be a completely strange place. Athena Aktipis, an evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University, says, "I think the Earth will look and feel like an alien otherworld by then."Evolution is still happening here and now, and will continue in the future, long after we are no longer in the world, and only under extreme circumstances will anomalous evolution and development occur, a pattern that the Earth has experienced so many times that it is inevitable in the future.
life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" trajectory.In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Deep Civilizations of the Future series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" trajectory.The main thrust of my scenario is that Post-naturalism in which humans are influenced by pan-technology, by gene editing with certain organisms in optimal combinations to generate more powerful biological chimeras, producing a mutually beneficial model of human hybridization.For example, if a photosynthetic organism is parasitized in the skin
Then humans would be self-sufficient by absorbing light and water to provide energy, which would reduce the need for crop production.
·Technology & Material Innovation
Based on the post-naturalism context to deal with the extreme environment generated by human interference, two linear exploration in technology - respectively, virtualization and physicalization, the former lies in the compilation of evolutionary forms, to explore the individual genetic arrangement of two directions: 1. individual genetic order natural evolution 2. biological chimeras after natural evolution.
The former is to explore two directions of individual genetic arrangement: 1. The latter focuses on the chemical reactions of microbial extracts, the simulation of second skin and the experimentation of sustainable materials.
I programmed the sound artificially, because the genetic code ATCG is four letters, assigned eight tones to ATCG, entered the genetic code of human and algae, imported the programming, and produced a more harmonious sound.
01 individual genetic order natural evolution
Referring to Nam June Paik's concept of "music in action", we have translated from one-dimensional gene sequences into two-dimensional rhythms, and then into three-dimensional mobile volumes, and used the gene sequences of different individuals to explain the evolutionary or hybrid evolutionary forms, and the figure shows an attempt to make different materials for the "mobile bodies" generated by Chlorella genes through this mechanism.
Using modeling to materialize the sound and let the sound interact with the model to make the transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.
Here is a video of the materialization of the sound rhythm according to the genetic code.
Different genetic codes can produce different forms and dynamics and textures.
#Virtual presentation display
The change in the dynamics of the materialization of the algal genes combined with the human genetic code, like a second human skin.
02 biological chimeras after natural evolution.
·Physical Production
Production process of making Alga"skin".
Recyclable “Dead Skin”
Gradual extinction of active cells：In a moist environment and with regular rehydration, this second skin can be kept as pliable and thick as an inflated tire, or it can be kept active by keeping it sealed (e.g. stored in a cooler). However, if the environment is dry, the active cells in the polar night skin will fail rapidly, and after about 24 hours, the skin will dry out, wrinkle and crack, but the "dead skin" can still be used as clothing and has a luminous function, and its biological material can be degraded in the soil and used as fertilizer.
·Expression and Curation
In order to better describe the prediction of post naturalism, I will explore the possibility and extensibility of biomaterials as the ultimate goal of this program, and take the humanistic care of returning nature to nature as an ideological premise. Based on the above research and experiments, three kinds of second skin to simulate coping with extreme climate (little ice age) are finally produced 3 skins:
Polar night skin \ Violet warm skin \ Blue light skin
01 Polar night skin
Biofilms were formed by the reaction of sodium alginate and calcium chloride with Chlorella vulgaris.
Chlorella forms translucent materials with different textures01/1 Physical display
At the same time, fluorescein is injected to make it emit green light without light source after absorbing ultraviolet light
Night-the state of releasing energy on the body.
the explanation of the different states of day and night.
# Release light -
Chlorella fluorescens skin
Chlorella, which can purify water, can combine well with fluorescent bacteria after the reaction of sodium alginate. After many attempts, it can show good luminous function after absorbing ultraviolet light.
Polar night skin
To cope with the long day and short night in winter, absorb ultraviolet rays in the daytime, and absorb oxygen in photosynthesis at night for energy conversion.Combined with the light system materials, after absorbing ultraviolet light during the day, photosynthesis at night to absorb oxygen for energy conversion.
In that I am a Fashion professional myself, I combined it with the human body, and this is the form of it covering the body.
01/2 Virtual presentation display - Explorers of polar night
02 Violet warm skin
02/1 Physical display
Violet warm skin caused by temperature changes the color by perceiving the temperature of different parts of human skin. When the temperature is higher than 28 degrees, it becomes light blue. The lower the temperature is, the darker the color is. It can absorb more heat under ultraviolet light and play a role of heat preservation.
Feel the temperature of different positions of human body.
# Perceived temperature - violet alga skin
Production process -
purple Bacillin pigment + Thermogenic pigment + sodium alginate
Extraction of purple Bacillin pigment
1. E. coli with purpurin gene was placed in 5ml LB medium with antibiotics.
2. When the medium was cultured at 37 ℃ for 20 hours, the extraction process could be started when the medium turned dark purple.
3. The harvested cells were centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 10 minutes.
4. The cells were resuspended in 300 UL acetone
5. Place the mixture on the vortex mixer and mix for 5 minutes.
6. Centrifuge at 14000 rpm for 1 minute
7. The collected supernatant is the biological pigment dye.
8. Other pigments can be diluted or mixed according to practical application.
Transparent leather texture
Extremely sensitive to temperature
02/2 Virtual presentation display
-Chameleon in the polar region
03 Blue light skin
03/1 Physical display
Blue light skin - The stronger the UV, the darker the color, and the more heat it absorbs. It is suitable for plateau areas with low temperature and high UV intensity to cope with the reduction of snow line, enhancement of UV and narrowing of temperate zone caused by ice age.
# AGAINST UV - blue algae skin
Blue light skin turns blue after ultraviolet radiation, and becomes darker with the enhancement of ultraviolet radiation, which enhances the absorption of heat.03/2 Virtual presentation display
- Highland snow Explorer
Finally, in the age of pantechnology, perhaps the real use of AI is to help us repurpose genes and organisms to achieve symbiosis and a mutually beneficial hybridization model with humans. Instead of pursuing human domination of nature, perhaps the way to survive in the future is to incorporate the genetic information of endangered animals into our lineage in order to become their maintainers and information carriers in the future, and to achieve human co-dominance with nature.
Live Like Bacteria
Designer: Guo Songnan
· BIG Idea & Vision
How would human beings evolve and adapt it if the current global environment is developing towards extremes?
Would you like to accept it if you are given a chance to join in the evolutionary queue and adapt to extreme climate conditions?
For the scheme, starting with the habit features of the oldest inhabitants of the earth, i.e. bacteria, I found three doomsday prophecies that inspire human beings to find the way to deal with the current environment problems. There are Hot Environment—Hephaestus，Acid Environment—Mermaid，Nuclear Environment—Pollution Cleaner.
Human beings evolved different featured forms to adapt to the future environment in the three kinds of doomsday respectively.
Part of the work "skin of the polar night"In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Future Deep Civilization series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" path. natural" path.
Overview
The extremes of climate may be forcing the evolution of new adaptive anomalies in a warming and drying planet, influenced by human activity. In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Future Deep Civilization series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" path. natural" path. In an age of pan-technology, where wild nature is disappearing and the relationship between the individual and nature is being transformed, humans are turning themselves into technologized beings, optimally combining us with certain organisms through genome editing to create more powerful biological chimeras. This future may be complex and lacking in pro-life nature. Thinking about it from another perspective, perhaps the real use of AI lies in helping us repurpose genes and organisms to achieve symbiosis, enabling a model of hybridization that is mutually beneficial to humans. Incorporating the genetic information of endangered plants and animals into our lineage, becoming their maintainers and information carriers, and achieving co-dominance between humans and nature may be the way to survive in the future.Extreme climates and environments are not far from us.For example, in 2020 there were many anomalies - hailstorms in many parts of China, and the lowest temperatures ever recorded at weather stations in 51 provinces. Australia saw forest fires due to dryness, and the Antarctic saw a rare 20 degrees Celsius.National Weather Service data predicts that in 2027, average precipitation in the United Kingdom will increase more wetly, while Portugal will be drier.Among which the melting of glaciers was very frightening, causing seawater to back up and releasing ancient viruses, which could easily cause the Earth to enter the Little Ice Age, the arrival of the last Little Ice Age caused not only a drop in temperature, but also famine and plagues and riots, even in the Ming Dynasty when technology was not advanced enough, which caused the population to halve and the death rate to rise.
According to the Ncar data, it can be seen that the anomalous sea temperature, the increase of sea ice and the anomalous sunspot activity in the last 30 years, which is predicted to enter a period of minimal sunspots in 10 years, are also important causes of the last Little Ice Age.
Evolution is still happening here and nowIn the early 1990s, author Dougal Dixon published a cult novel "Man after man" (After Man: An anthropologist of the Future) in which he predicted the possible new evolutionary development of human beings in order to adapt to the ecological environment in a century. In the book "After Man: An anthropologist of the Future", it is predicted that 200 years later, the aquatic human-aquamorph, each physical feature-the streamlined body with the smooth skin and the insulating blubber layer, the gills on the chest , the paddles on the legs-was grown by the embryo.Although Dixon's book is a fictional novel, most biologists agree that the Earth millions of years from now will be a completely strange place. Athena Aktipis, an evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University, says, "I think the Earth will look and feel like an alien otherworld by then."Evolution is still happening here and now, and will continue in the future, long after we are no longer in the world, and only under extreme circumstances will anomalous evolution and development occur, a pattern that the Earth has experienced so many times that it is inevitable in the future.life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" trajectory.In an article written by researcher Lauren Holt for the BBC's Deep Civilizations of the Future series, it is suggested that life on Earth may have chosen a "post-natural" trajectory.The main thrust of my scenario is that Post-naturalism in which humans are influenced by pan-technology, by gene editing with certain organisms in optimal combinations to generate more powerful biological chimeras, producing a mutually beneficial model of human hybridization.For example, if a photosynthetic organism is parasitized in the skin
Then humans would be self-sufficient by absorbing light and water to provide energy, which would reduce the need for crop production.
·Technology & Material Innovation
Based on the post-naturalism context to deal with the extreme environment generated by human interference, two linear exploration in technology - respectively, virtualization and physicalization, the former lies in the compilation of evolutionary forms, to explore the individual genetic arrangement of two directions: 1. individual genetic order natural evolution 2. biological chimeras after natural evolution.
The former is to explore two directions of individual genetic arrangement: 1. The latter focuses on the chemical reactions of microbial extracts, the simulation of second skin and the experimentation of sustainable materials.
I programmed the sound artificially, because the genetic code ATCG is four letters, assigned eight tones to ATCG, entered the genetic code of human and algae, imported the programming, and produced a more harmonious sound.01 individual genetic order natural evolution
Referring to Nam June Paik's concept of "music in action", we have translated from one-dimensional gene sequences into two-dimensional rhythms, and then into three-dimensional mobile volumes, and used the gene sequences of different individuals to explain the evolutionary or hybrid evolutionary forms, and the figure shows an attempt to make different materials for the "mobile bodies" generated by Chlorella genes through this mechanism.
Using modeling to materialize the sound and let the sound interact with the model to make the transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.
Here is a video of the materialization of the sound rhythm according to the genetic code.Different genetic codes can produce different forms and dynamics and textures.#Virtual presentation display
The change in the dynamics of the materialization of the algal genes combined with the human genetic code, like a second human skin.
02 biological chimeras after natural evolution.
·Physical Production
Production process of making Alga"skin".
Recyclable “Dead Skin”
Gradual extinction of active cells：In a moist environment and with regular rehydration, this second skin can be kept as pliable and thick as an inflated tire, or it can be kept active by keeping it sealed (e.g. stored in a cooler). However, if the environment is dry, the active cells in the polar night skin will fail rapidly, and after about 24 hours, the skin will dry out, wrinkle and crack, but the "dead skin" can still be used as clothing and has a luminous function, and its biological material can be degraded in the soil and used as fertilizer.
·Expression and Curation
In order to better describe the prediction of post naturalism, I will explore the possibility and extensibility of biomaterials as the ultimate goal of this program, and take the humanistic care of returning nature to nature as an ideological premise. Based on the above research and experiments, three kinds of second skin to simulate coping with extreme climate (little ice age) are finally produced 3 skins:
Polar night skin \ Violet warm skin \ Blue light skin
01 Polar night skin
Biofilms were formed by the reaction of sodium alginate and calcium chloride with Chlorella vulgaris.Chlorella forms translucent materials with different textures01/1 Physical display
At the same time, fluorescein is injected to make it emit green light without light source after absorbing ultraviolet light
Night-the state of releasing energy on the body.
the explanation of the different states of day and night.
# Release light -
Chlorella fluorescens skin
Chlorella, which can purify water, can combine well with fluorescent bacteria after the reaction of sodium alginate. After many attempts, it can show good luminous function after absorbing ultraviolet light.Polar night skin
To cope with the long day and short night in winter, absorb ultraviolet rays in the daytime, and absorb oxygen in photosynthesis at night for energy conversion.Combined with the light system materials, after absorbing ultraviolet light during the day, photosynthesis at night to absorb oxygen for energy conversion.
In that I am a Fashion professional myself, I combined it with the human body, and this is the form of it covering the body.
01/2 Virtual presentation display - Explorers of polar night
02 Violet warm skin
02/1 Physical display
Violet warm skin caused by temperature changes the color by perceiving the temperature of different parts of human skin. When the temperature is higher than 28 degrees, it becomes light blue. The lower the temperature is, the darker the color is. It can absorb more heat under ultraviolet light and play a role of heat preservation.
Feel the temperature of different positions of human body.
# Perceived temperature - violet alga skin
Production process -
purple Bacillin pigment + Thermogenic pigment + sodium alginate
Extraction of purple Bacillin pigment
1. E. coli with purpurin gene was placed in 5ml LB medium with antibiotics.
2. When the medium was cultured at 37 ℃ for 20 hours, the extraction process could be started when the medium turned dark purple.
3. The harvested cells were centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 10 minutes.
4. The cells were resuspended in 300 UL acetone
5. Place the mixture on the vortex mixer and mix for 5 minutes.
6. Centrifuge at 14000 rpm for 1 minute
7. The collected supernatant is the biological pigment dye.
8. Other pigments can be diluted or mixed according to practical application.Transparent leather textureExtremely sensitive to temperature02/2 Virtual presentation display
-Chameleon in the polar region
03 Blue light skin
03/1 Physical display
Blue light skin - The stronger the UV, the darker the color, and the more heat it absorbs. It is suitable for plateau areas with low temperature and high UV intensity to cope with the reduction of snow line, enhancement of UV and narrowing of temperate zone caused by ice age.# AGAINST UV - blue algae skin
Blue light skin turns blue after ultraviolet radiation, and becomes darker with the enhancement of ultraviolet radiation, which enhances the absorption of heat.03/2 Virtual presentation display
- Highland snow Explorer
Finally, in the age of pantechnology, perhaps the real use of AI is to help us repurpose genes and organisms to achieve symbiosis and a mutually beneficial hybridization model with humans. Instead of pursuing human domination of nature, perhaps the way to survive in the future is to incorporate the genetic information of endangered animals into our lineage in order to become their maintainers and information carriers in the future, and to achieve human co-dominance with nature.
