In 2010 Nadine Bongaerts and Eva Brinkman were part of a team that took part in the annual international scientific competition iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine), organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. iGEM challenges teams of international students to come up with new biological building bricks for a micro-organism. Their project, which involved a bacterium with properties for degrading oil, put them in the top 6 of the 124 teams. This experience was the starting point for their company Biotecture, which focuses on knowledge exchange around, and raising awareness of life sciences. 

Ellen ter Gast trained as a medical biologist and philosopher, before specialising as a researcher and consultant in the field of strategic management and organisational development. Her multidisciplinary background makes her a prototype ‘integrative thinker’. She draws inspiration and insights from exploring the boundaries between various disciplines. When it comes to biology and business administration, this inspiration comes from the principle of the living (and learning) organisation. The link between nature and technology has challenged her to think beyond traditional boundaries by studying that pioneer of the biotech revolution: the mouse.

Anna Dumitriu is a visual and performance artist who’s work is at the forefront of art and science collaborative practice, with a strong interest in the ethical issues raised by emerging technologies. Her installations, interventions and performances use a range of biological, digital, and traditional media including live bacteria, robotics, interactive media, and textiles. She has a strong international exhibition profile, having exhibited at The Science Gallery in Dublin, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Taipei, and The V & A Museum in London. 

Arne Hendriks is an artist and exhibition maker and works passionately in the field of open-design, hacking, speculative research, education and the fine culture of repair. He’s almost 2 meters tall but not too happy about it. Especially when he found out that every centimeter above 152 cm takes about 6 months of your life expectation. People grow taller and as a direct result we need more energy, more food and more space. But what if we decided to turn this trend around? What if we use our knowledge to shrink mankind? 

After graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2009, Mike Thompson set up his own studio focusing upon design and future thinking. His work explores both old and new technologies in order to generate fresh relationships between function and behaviour, questioning common codes of conduct. His aim is to create a body of work blending his research based design approach with an interest in current issues and technology to reflect and comment upon society both in the present and the future. As such his work touches upon issues such as sustainability, biotechnology and psychology.

www.daisyginsberg.com 

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is a designer, artist and writer who uses the medium of design to interrogate emerging technologies, science, and the function of design itself. As Design Fellow on Synthetic Aesthetics, an NSF/EPSRC-funded project at Stanford University and the University of Edinburgh, she has been curating an international programme researching synthetic biology, art and design, investigating how we might ‘design nature.’ Her recent projects include ‘The Synthetic Kingdom’, a proposal to recognize a new branch of the biological tree of live.

Jessica de Boer is an artist and researcher working in the field where art and science meet. She graduated in Business Administration and Sustainability at the University of Twente, and from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (ArtScience interfaculty). She makes installations in which natural processes find their own way. Her work shows that matter, or what looks like non-life, starts to move and change when combined with other tissues, and in so doing suggests life. She recently started a PhD on ‘The Elastic Energy Landscape’ at the University of Groningen.

Michael Ulrich Hensel is a German architect, researcher, educator and writer, and amongst others Professor Research by Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. His main areas of interest are ‘Performance-oriented Design’ and ‘Performance-oriented Architecture’. Hensel has been a key proponent of interdisciplinary research by design in architecture since the mid-1990s, founder and current chairman of OCEAN Design Research Association and SEA - Sustainable Environment Association. He is a prolific writer whose work has been published world-wide.

liam-young.tumblr.com

Liam Young is an independent urbanist, futurist, critic and curator. He was named by Blueprint magazine as one of 25 people who will change architecture and design in 2010. He is one of the coordinators of the nomadic design studio Unknown Fields Division and is a founder of the think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a group whose work explores the consequences of fantastic, perverse and underrated urbanisms. His projects deploy fictional near-future scenario’s as critical instruments for instigating debate about the social, the architectural, and political consequences of emerging biological and technological futures.