Speaker at How to Biodesign at BlueCity Lab

Lars van Vianen will speak at How to Biodesign #7 at BlueCity Lab in Rotterdam.

What is genetic modification and what are the possibilities and challenges you face as a biodesigner? What are the limits in your field as a designer and where do you start to explain how biotech can create circular solutions? We’ll dive into biodesign and genetics during How to Biodesign #7!

How to Biodesign

Climate crisis asks for regenerative design. With the meetup series How to Biodesign, BlueCity Lab provides a platform for and by bioneers (pioneers in biodesign). Together with William Myers (curator, author, and teacher in Biodesign), we explore the opportunities from a systemic approach to raw material flows, making smart use of the latest knowledge and expertise about circular design, but also from biotechnology and biochemistry.

The monthly meet-ups facilitate interaction between bioneers who are already working and those who want to get started with biodesign and biofabrication, provide a platform for sharing stories and experiences and actively share knowledge, know-how and insights from the meetups to a broader audience.

This month’s speakers

Christina Agapakis is a synthetic biologist because she believes in the tremendous power of biology to transform the way we make technology. She is an artist because she believes that science and technology are political, shaped by human needs, biases, and emotions. In her work, she seeks out ways to blur the boundaries drawn between nature and technology and between science and society, to practice a different kind of engineering that better takes into account the human and cultural. She currently works at Gingko Bioworks, a synthetic biology company based in Boston.

Lars van Vianen is a meta-designer and founding director of Scape Agency. Proceeding from a background in interactive art, experience design and parametric architecture, Lars explores the convergence of synthetic biology, materials science, artificial intelligence and robotic construction. Believing the principle of design is the decodation of dreams into the parametrization and instrumentalization of reality, he exerts computation to concurrently operate across scales and mediate between natural and artificial actors. Lars launched Scape Agency in 2020, a spatial innovation collective that dreams, discovers and designs the everyday of tomorrow.
What to expect?

- An interactive online meetup where we share inspiration, knowledge and know-how on a monthly theme
- A great group of people/bioneers: every guest has the possibility to contribute
- A chance to dig into the expertise of fellow bioneers.

Practical information

When? 1 September 2020, 19:30 – 21:30
Where? BlueCity Lab, Maasboulevard 100, Rotterdam