Daisy Ginsberg

I use design to explore the implications of emerging and unfamiliar technologies, science and services. Perhaps my background in architecture and urbanism makes me look down the microscope the wrong way: I am fascinated by the macroscopic view, the larger-scale social, cultural and ethical consequences of engineering invisible organisms, creating nano-scale devices and unravelling our genetic futures.

At the Royal College of Art, London, I began researching synthetic biology, the application of engineering principles to biology, the abstraction of the chaos of life into standardised components and systems. I have now moved into the wetlab: I am designing a Synthetic Biology Protocol for SymbioticA, the unique art and science collaborative laboratory at the University of Western Australia.

Prior to graduating from the MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art this year, I read Architecture at Cambridge University, worked in urbanism and spent a year at Harvard learning about narrative and design research. I spent my time at the RCA exploring what design - integral to the developments of the Industrial and Information Revolutions - has to ‘offer’ to a Biotech Revolution. I think that role includes imagining and designing compelling narratives that allow us to question our unprecedented future.

http://www.daisyginsberg.com/

James King

I am a speculative designer working in the fields of biotechnology and interaction design. I design applications for emerging technologies and through this work examine their social and aesthetic implications.

I conduct research and design speculative products, services, systems and brands. I have made projects about the use of tissue-culture technologies in food production, the future of pharmacy-based healthcare and the aesthetics of nanotechnology at the human scale.

Since graduating from the RCA I have run my own design practice and worked for clients such as BERG and the BBC. Concurrent to this, I have held a research position at the RCA (2006-07) while also teaching design at Central Saint Martins college. My work has been exhibited widely. Most notably in MoMA’s Design and The Elastic Mind exhibition in 2008 and reproduced in many publications such as Wired Magazine and Seed. Subsequently my project, Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow, was acquired into MoMA’s permanent collection.

My background in visual design colours most of my work and the impetus driving me is a desire to find out how the future might look and feel.

http://www.james-king.net