And in other news:
This article was brought to my attention by a grad student in MIT’s Endy lab as a (cynically) “real-world application” of synthetic biology:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1872191.htm
That’s right, scientists are coaxing bacteria into manufacturing beer dresses. N.B. the convergence of the bleeding-edge technical and the Primitive in the photo of haute couture swampthing…
Now, I don’t think this is synthetic biology. It isn’t using standardized biological parts, and it isn’t attempting to catalog those parts in order to separate design from fabrication. This is pretty much straight-up biotech. Nonetheless, it did inspire a brief meditation on the etymology of fabrication, which I have found to be a useful word with which to think about synthetic biology.
A fabrication is something manufactured from standardized parts, as well as a deception (think George Eliot’s “‘dear deceit’ of beauty,” in this case). Along with fabric, which is both fiber and structure, fabrication comes from the latin root that haunts homo faber, that problematic persona of the human imbued with a natural impetus to manufacture tools, and tools to make more tools…and more and more tools… (to which Huizinga contrasts homo ludens, but, of course, nanotech and synthetic biology are also forms of deep play, no?).
So this odd internet meme opens up for me a few questions about the nature of synthetic biology, which of course I will leave someone else to address: what is the relationship between nature and artifice as it pertains to fabricated biological materials? And, a question that pertains to both nanotech and synthetic biology, as disciplines concerned primarily with building new things rather than engaging in discovery science, what is the relation of design to fabrication? And what sorts of imaginaries are implied by the choice of applications and artifacts of synthetic biology and nanotechnology (the earlier mentioned bacterial clocks, nanoguitars, and now whimsical fermentation fashion)?
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omg, the possibilities for out of control derridean riffs of faber, fabric, textile, texts, tissue, weaving… how can we get the retro-hip obsession with knitting and craft into dialogue with the biowhimsy? Bring on the Jaquard loom, and we can connect it all together through programming and the industrial revolution!
btw does that cavewoman look decidely male to you? I’m thinking Whitesnake or Poison…
… how can we get the retro-hip obsession with knitting and craft into dialogue with the biowhimsy?
easy. hyperbolic crochet coral reefs of course.