MAKING_LIFE 2014–2015

art & synthetic biology

Making_Life is a series of three work periods which allows a multidisciplinary group of practitioners to critically, and in an informed manner, engage with the socio-cultural, political and ethical complexities of synthetic biology.

Events

Making_Life – Seminar

23 May 2015

Urban Workshop, Lasipalatsi, Helsinki

In the seminar, Making_Life participants gave an introduction to synthetic biology and why and how they are interested in engaging with it. Discussed have been key technologies, promises, the hype...

Making-Life III – exhibition

22 — 31 May 2015

Lasipalatsi Näyttely, Helsinki

An exhibtion with artistic responses to synthetic biology The exhibtion Making_Life was the presentation of the artistic prototyping workshop Making_Life III.
Four diferent groups composed from the...

Martin Hanczyc, Public Lecture

27 Nov 2014

The House of Science and Letters, Helsinki, Finland

The lecture was part of Making_Life, a project by the Finnish Society of Bioart in collaboration with Biofilia – Base for Biological Arts – Aalto University Finland and Bio:Fiction Vienna Austria...

Bio-Commons Workshop

7 — 8 Jun 2014

Vartiosaari, Helsinki, Finland

The Commons consist of any common resource that is available to all, narrowing basically to two: physical resources or man-made. A plenitude of licensing modes has been developed in the past and...

News

Making Liposomal Vitamin C

Practical Guide Adapted fromhttp://qualityliposomalc.com/ Materials Scale Blender Ultrasonic bath (if you don't have one, see instructions for...

Guest post | sarah | 22 April 2016

Participant sessions

The last phase of the workshop (has it really been a workshop? or an event? a meeting? and encounter? a happening?) gives participants...

Guest post | sarah | 29 March 2016

Protocells - talk

After the hands-on session we continued with a lecture by Martin Hanczyc who’s a Principal Investigator in the Centre for Integrative Biology...

Guest post | sarah | 29 March 2016

Encapsulation of Bacterial Ecosystems...

Helena Shomar and Stephen Fortune (See below for practical guide)This practical session featured a novel biotechnological technique for...

Guest post | sarah | 29 March 2016

Individual presentations

The third day of Making_Life workshop 2 started with individual presentations by some of the workshop participants. The idea was to present...

Guest post | sarah | 29 March 2016

Artificial extremophilia

Rupert MutzelThis session involved growing wild type and experimentally evolved Escherichia coli cells at various salt concentrations.Protocol...

Guest post | sarah | 23 March 2016

Halophile Cultures

Andy GracieHalophiles are organisms that love salt. For example bacteria that flourish in salty conditions. In this practical session ...

Guest post | sarah | 23 March 2016

Working with anaerobic cultures

Oron Catts Inoculation: anaerobic bacteria from mouth - Using blood plates and salt plates to grow bacteria from teeth and gum.

Guest post | sarah | 23 March 2016

Panspermia or Not

We Are The Only Chance Our morning started with a interesting and quite in depth lecture by Rupert Mutzel – “Panspermia or Not” Important to note...

Guest post | sarah | 23 March 2016

Abiogenesis - Crystal Garden

The last session of the day was our attempt at creating a chemical garden, which is an experiment involving solid metal salts in an aqueous...

Guest post | sarah | 22 March 2016

Winogradsky Columns

Ramping up physical activity quite dramatically and in a departure from scheduled proceedings, the afternoon was spent constructing Winogradsky...

Guest post | sarah | 22 March 2016

Xenobiology

Moving on from a highly philosophical exploration of life, the principal theory dump we received was courtesy of Markus Schmidt, who has joined our...

Guest post | sarah | 22 March 2016

Workshops

Workshop 1

Workshop 1 from the 22nd – 27th of May 2014 is an introduction to the molecular biological foundations of synthetic biology.

Workshop 2

Workshop 2 from 24th – 28th of November 2014 is looking into the more exotic topics of synthetic biology like protocells and xenobiology.

Workshop 3

Workshop 3 from the 17th – 22nd of May 2015 is an intense artistic prototyping workshop which concludes the program with an exhibition and a...

Workshop Kit

This kit documents the three Making_Life workshops in more detail, and is intended especially for those interested in repeating any parts. It...

Bio-Commons Workshop

The Finnish Society of Bioart and SYNENERGENE invited participants to a workshop about Bio-Commons, in the framework of Camp Pixelache, from the...

Exhibition

Living Ashes

Banana peels, beeswax, birch ashes, canola oil, coconut oil, cigarette ashes, olive oil, pork fat, rainwater, Taiwanese Joss paper

Charli Clark,...

STARBEASTS

An Interstellar Zeitgeber ('time-giver')

Cyanobacteria (S.elongatus PCC 7942), continuous culture device, acrylic, electronics

Stephen Fortune,...

Your Synthetic Future

(at the Speed of Light) Custom made hardware, Zeiss microscope with sample, computer, custom made software

Thierry Bardini, Laura Beloff, Erich...

Vanitas / Dead Growth

Bones, eggshells, seashells, limestone, acids, aquarium, steamer, heating lamp.

Juha Hilpas, Emilio Zamudio

Bones could be described as the...

Seminar

In the seminar, Making_Life participants will give an introduction to synthetic biology and why and how they are interested in engaging with it. Discussed will be key technologies, promises, the hype which surrounds synthetic biology and the resulting cultural perception. A key dialogue followed by 5 brief presentations will discuss issues and questions addressing synthetic biology in relation to society at large.

Saturday 23rd of May 2015,...

Participants & External Resources

People

Andy Gracie
Antti Tenetz
Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa
Cecilia Jonsson
Charli Clark
Corrie Van Sice
Erich Berger
Haohsin Chang
Helena Shomar
...