Collaborations 
Collaboration is at the core of ARC’s practice. Its aim is to produce the conditions for creative and original inquiry. ARC’s collaborations bring together researchers around significant problems to construct and test common concepts. Over the years, ARC has coalesced around two main projects:
Synthetic Anthropos and Nanotechnology
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, after more than two decades of massive sequencing projects, synthetic biology represents a return of the organism; it aims at nothing less than the (eventual) remediation of living organisms in a precise fashion according to instrumental goals set by the engineer. Nanotechnology, especially in the domains of chemistry and materials science, represents a radicalization of the engineering world-view, and is routinely concerned with exploring both new forms of the control of matter and new forms of concern about such control. The research in this project aims at comparison across the two domains of science and at the creation of concepts and equipment that make sense of issues related to security and safety, responsibility, intellectual property and new/emergent objects.
- On the Assembly of Things: Scanning Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology
- More on “Human Practices”
- Researchers
- Documents
- Lab Journal (researchers only)
- Design Notes
- Ethics and Politics of Nanotechnology (Rice University)
Vital Systems
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, and in the face of possible future catastrophes such as pandemic flu, the character of security has changed dramatically. The Vital Systems Security collaboration asks how, in this context, security is being reproblematized as an object of knowledge, intervention, and political reflection. It proposes that the security of “vital systems” – such as energy, transportation, communication and health – is one significant new norm of contemporary security in relationship to which existing elements are being configured. Click on the links below for more on Vital Systems Security or check out the VSS blog.
More on VSS:
