#biolace

Biolace by Carole Collet

“‘Biolace’ proposes to use synthetic biology as an engineering technology to reprogram plants into multi-purpose factories...Could biological engineering promote a new kind of sustainable textile manufacturing, less reliant on chemicals and less energy-hungry than our current models of production?”

Fashion 2050: Biolace

Carole Collet is a professor in Design for Sustainable Futures and Director of Design & Living Systems Lab, focusing her research on biodesign, biofacturing, high-tech sustainability. Collet is also a pioneer of the Textile Futures discipline at Central Saint Martins.

What is unique about Collet’s work is that most of her projects are fictional, in the sense that they represent possible products or situations in the year 2050 and beyond.

One such fictional project, is “Biolace” (2010-2012), a series of four plants, Strawberry Noir, Basil n 5, Tomato Factor 60, and GoldNano Spinach, which are presented in a hyper-engineered state. The works are provocative, in the sense that they bring up discussions of the pros and cons of living technologies and genetic engineering. How far is ‘too far’ when it comes to controlling living organisms to our benefit? What happens when these plants become a reality? The main goal is to eliminate chemical-based textile manufacturing while also harvesting food to eat. 

But would you, as the artist states, “eat a vitamin-rich black strawberry from a plant that has also produced your little black dress?”

In the future, plants may become multi-purpose factories, producing both food and fabric. Instead of polluting the air with gas or the water with runoff like in a traditional factory, water and sunlight are the only fuels these ‘factories’ would need. Sustainability has never looked (and tasted!) so good.

‘This is Alive’ an exhibition showcasing projects that realise a world where biological fabrication replaces traditional manufacture to create greener production methods and more eco-friendly materials that could provide a moe symbiotic relationship wih the world, which is an ideal that sustainability works towards.

 Faber Futures

A collaboration between textiles designer Natsai Chieza and Professor John Ward of Structural Molecular Biology at UCL the first collection of textiles printed by traditional screen printing method but using dyes created by bacteria have been conceptualised. The Rhizosphere Pigment Lab explores the botanic provenance of pigment-producing bacteria in a unique microbiology textile design studio. Its context lies in a new age of ‘soft’ meets ‘hard’, i.e. where programmable cell biology meets more traditional technology. By growing bacteria as an ink factory with the ultimate goal being the synthesis of bacteria to produce a predetermined colour chart.

This is an exciting research project that is in the process of being achieved. This is another path leading from my research into biomimicry, where instead of designing with biology in mind we actually use the biology within our processes, making them more natural and ecological as nature produces within itself and keeps a balance, it is human industrial production that is inefficient and disrupts the atmosphere. I really like the idea of this project, particularly as bacteria are so abundant and live in easy to create conditions needing only natural food supplies. This bio-hacking style method is also exciting to me as I really enjoy biology and textiles as a collaboration in this way and would love to explore more scientific research in this way in my own practice at some point.

http://thisisalive.com/faber-futures/

http://natsaiaudrey.tumblr.com/post/65950352236/faber-futures-the-print-room

      BioLace

Carole Collet also features in this exhibition, but this time with a more conceptual idea that is again in it’s research stage to be realised in the future.

‘Biolace’ proposes to use synthetic biology as an engineering technology to reprogram plants into multi-purpose factories. Imagine hydroponic organic greenhouses, where new species of plants would produce ‘augmented’ food at the same time as growing fabrics from their roots. Plants become living machines, simply needing sun and water to be operational. In such a scenario, we would harvest fruits and fabrics at the same time from the same plants.

This would be an amazing development if achieved in the future, around 2050 she suspects. It would mean a green method of ‘growing’ certain types of fabrics and would therefore eliminate whole sectors of industry and their energy use and emissions. She is inspired by current hybrid living technologies and therefore in theory this is achievable. She does highlight some issues with this project however in her video ‘Biolace, Design and Biofacture’ about it being truly possible to control a living thing and what becomes of a designer if materials can be produced by programming another living thing.

http://thisisalive.com/biolace/