Machina Synthetica Communicatia²⁰¹⁹

What if we design DNA to redesign the Smartphone? Geopolitical, social and environmental issues in the supply chain as well as in the recycling process of the smartphone call for new production methods. The field of synthetic biology is parallelly advancing in its possibilities to design organisms that are ever more complex and offering organic solutions to current inorganic electronic components. Creating a new product typology, Machina Synthetica Communicatia rethinks how we produce, and how we might merge bodily with biological products. Apart from technical questions of realization, we need to discuss other aspects as well. What does it mean if a living product becomes an organic body extension and the host becomes the battery? When we visit a farm to buy a extra organism? Products and animals do not have rights. There are only consumer and animal protection laws. If the product is alive, how will the law and social structures change? Will it alter the identity of our species?

Multitudes of ethical and social questions arise from the new possibilities of biological production. Apart from these general questions an integrated living phone offers the opportunity for somatic interfaces integrating a larger integration of the body`s motoric capabilities and sensorial interaction.


︎︎︎ Full Movie, Exhibition, Talks or Consulting on Request

We extract, and transform,
take in and control,
plan and end
and yet we only do so
for our own time span.
 
Millions of years
do I the air
and I the rain
rub the passing stone,

and for a thousand years
I the oak
have a fierce grip
of my surrounding soil,

and I the human
dispose of my product
leaving traces behind
after the 80 years of my life.

Our current production and consumption methods pose a stark temporal contradiction.

Part 1 of the research is exploring the various forms of obsolescence and the discrepancy of consumer goods’ material properties in relation to their temporality. This is further explored on the example of the smartphone ending with an outlook how consumption and material properties could be realigned.

Part 2 then explores how recent developments of synthetic biology could create future production methods incorporating real product life cycles rather than metaphorical ones.

︎︎︎Thesis available on request.

KARMIN^2018-2020

Healthcare Design, Rapid Prototyping, Infection Prevention, Research By Design, 

Design instead of antibiotics - How can a two bed patient room on a normal ward be designed affecting work processes and patient habits to ultimately reduce the transmission of MRSA? This project is a research into how architecture and design can reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infection.

National and international guidelines call for the isolation of patients with multi-resistant pathogens in single rooms. However, the increasing incidence of these pathogens complicates the implementation of these recommendations. Most multi-resistant pathogens are transmitted primarily by contact. Thus, transmission-free care of patients with these pathogens should be possible in double bedrooms specifically designed towards reducing these incidents. However, there are no studies on the possible equipment of double bedrooms with two bathrooms. There are also no investigations on the colonisation of new hospital buildings by microorganisms - two questions that this project is aiming to answer.

The KARMIN project is investigating if double patient bedrooms can be upgraded as alternative to current infection prevention methods. As a result, a demonstrator for double bedrooms with appropriate infection prophylaxis equipment, including the wet room, was realised. 13 partners from the field’s industry were involved along with two medical research teams of the Charité Berlin and Uniklinikum Jena and the core team of architects and designers at Technical University Braunschweig.

The project’s main strategy comprises of optimizing the patient room layout and design of relevant objects towards better cleanability, supportive workflow integration and data collection for thorough team reviews of disinfection compliance. Objects optimised towards infection prevention and methods of patient empowerment were developed as much as the layout of the patient room was rethought based on literature research, work experience, expert interviews, site visits and workshops.

The resulting patient room, object, data and workflow design will be presented at World Health Summit 2020 at Charité Berlin in October 2020.

︎︎︎ KARMIN Website
︎︎︎ Part of InfectControl 2020

Disinfection Dispenser
︎︎︎ The disinfection dispenser is the core element of horizontal infection prevention in an hospital environment. Despite its decade-long establishment there is still potential for improvement in reducing the transmission of multiresistant bacteria. Six dispensers were placed axisymmetrical along the work route of the hospitel staff. The newly developed KARMIN disinfection dispenser was designed to ease cleaning while preventing improper processing of single use components. A RFID tracking system recognizes anonymously how and in which order the hospital staff used the dispensers. It can also assign a user group to the usage statistics helping to define a lack in compliance more precisely during team meetings. The dispenser’s inbuilt display evokes an inductive emotional response in the user increasing compliance twofold as a study has shown.

Patient Bed Table
︎︎︎ One frequently used object within the immdiate proximity to the patient bed is the patient bed table - a surface and storage volume regularely touched by both patients, caregivers and sometimes also by visitors and cleaning staff. The design of the newly developed KARMIN patient bed table reduces the number of joints and sharp corners significantly to minimize ground for colonisation of bacteria. Instead shapes feature fillets and open spaces easy to reach by the cleaning staff.

Bedside Terminal
︎︎︎ An infection preventive environment needs to be used in the right manner. Therefore, informing and education is crucial to a successful infection prevention strategy. The KARMIN suite of the bedside terminal features a hierarchy prioritizing the education and empowerment of the patient through informative videos and serious games.

Project Partners
︎︎︎ Technische Universität Braunschweig – Institut für Industriebau und Konstruktives Entwerfen (Coordinator)
︎︎︎ Röhl GmbH Blechbearbeitung
︎︎︎ Universitätsklinikum Jena – Septomics Research Group
︎︎︎ Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin – Institut für Hygiene und Umweltmedizin

Team
︎︎︎ Dr. Wolfgang Sunder
︎︎︎ Julia Moellmann
︎︎︎ Oliver Zeise

Beyond Identity²⁰¹⁷

Interactive Installation, Facial Recognition, Scenario Thinking, 

Good Morning.
...
Checking today’s agenda.
...
Today you will meet Jan, Henriette, Jesse, Jon and you will encounter two face recognition algorithms.
...
Calculating instructions.
...
Here is my suggestion: Apply the cheek pieces. Your hairstyle and eye color fits already; however, you should make one more change.
...
Now take today’s nose.
...
You are ready to go.


Have you ever been looked at disdainful? Which new habits of self-care and styling will we develop facing an environment populated with facial recognition and social scoring devices? We have always judged each other superficially based on visual impressions. Already at the beginning of the 19th century tried Adolphe Quetelet to quantify the human ascribing certain characteristics developing the field of criminology.

Both as a defensive but also as a proactive and self-assuring measure we pick certain clothes, hairstyles, make up, scents and gestures when going on a date, meet an accountant for a mortgage negotiation or a human resource representative for a application interview. Now these situations of judgement have been supplemented with algorithmic decision-making based on correlative research often drawing their final judgement on visual databases of people's faces. Your sexual orientation, your credit worthiness, your political view, your IQ and many more aspects can be determined by your facial appearance.

Algorithmic bias and ethical problems led multiple activists to develop defensive systems to disguise someones face unrecognizable. However, all measurements have been overcome by advancing technology. Facing a world accepting of facial recognition we need to ask the question of how we will proactively shape our styling habits developed for situations of encountering other humans to situations of encountering algorithms. Beyond Identity explores this situation proposing a advisory smart mirror serving as consultant and reviser to adapt your face in the morning. Knowing your day's agenda, it suggests you styling cues favoring desired attributes as well as being able to print seamlessly sculpted masks. Beyond Identity supports designing your body.

︎︎︎ Testrun the smart-mirror on yourself here.

Greenery irrigated by sweat pairs up with somatic movements translated into moiré effects . Bushman is a suit that filters your breathing air, providing you with a well-scented environment in a dull office space. It conjures a smile on your colleagues’ faces and leaves a fresh breeze behind.

In Collaboration with Yiqian Bao