The 2022 Venice - Metaverse Art Annual Exhibition: How Nature Inspires Design

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My work was featured in the Biodesign section of the 2022 Venice - Metaverse Art Annual Exhibition. Below is the exhibition information.

May 6, 2022 • 21 min read

Meta-Curation 2/N｜自然如何启发设计？

by 持续新生OFFICIAL, mp.weixin.qq.com • See original

Biodesign

策展人｜Curator

Yanbing Liu

Jiayu Jiang

艺术家｜Artists

Sheepmaomao

Shengyu Meng (Simon)

Yanbing Liu

Saiyuan Li

Yuning Chen

Bicheng Zhou & Shizhen Xu

为什么需要生物设计？

这个问题或许也会出现在数十年前，为什么设计师要了解计算机？为什么设计师要参与交互页面的设计？为什么不好好做设计来研究心理学？

设计逐渐度过不断细分、专营专精的时代。如今是一个扩展和链接的时代，设计链接计算机，有了引人入胜的数字媒体、交互界面，我们期待着设计链接生物学将为我们带来什么？

未来学家说，21世纪每个人都需要懂编程语言。很多人已经体会到了这一点。

未来学家又说，21世纪是生物学的世纪。这或许意味着每个人都需要了解演化思维，了解适应性，了解复杂系统，了解涌现，了解生物学，了解自然。

自然界为我们保留了丰富的“解决方案“和创意案例：

能够探索出最优路径的微生物，能够保证组织抗压运行的的昆虫。在不同流体中行动自如的动物。每一片都完全不同但来自同样生产过程的树叶、雪花、掌纹。

无“人“设计但高度复杂、无法预测的天气系统，以及几乎完全可持续的行星生态。这些“设计“启发着人类设计师探索适应性、可持续、变化和系统。我们希望收集和展示这些理解，并在观众的再次理解中进步。

生物设计是

生物学的设计，

利用生物技术的设计，

来自生物启发的设计，

以及为了生物的设计。

Why do we need Biodesign?

This question may have appeared decades ago, why should designers understand computers? Why should designers be involved in the study of computer interaction? Why should designers study psychology?

Design is gradually passing through the era of constant segmentation and franchise specialization. Today is an era of extensions and links, design links computers, with fascinating digital media, and interactive interfaces, and we look forward to what design links biology will bring us.

Futurists say that everyone in the 21st century will need to know programming languages. Many people have realized it.

Futurists say that the 21st century is the century of biology as well. This probably means that everyone needs to understand evolutionary thinking, to understand adaptation, to understand complex systems, to understand the emergence, to understand biology, and to understand nature.

Nature has preserved for us a wealth of "solutions" and examples of creativity: microorganisms that can explore optimal paths, and insects that can keep tissues running under pressure. Animals that move freely in different fluids. Leaves, snowflakes, palm prints, each one is completely different but from the same production process. Weather systems without "human" design but highly complex and unpredictable, and a planetary ecology that is almost completely sustainable. These "designs" inspire human designers to explore adaptability, sustainability, changes, and systems. We hope to collect and present these understandings, and make progress in the audience's re-understanding.

Biodesign is

Design of biology.

Design with biology.

Design from biology.

and Design for biology.

——Yanbing Liu

策展人简介

Yanbing Liu

刘雁冰

生物设计师，工业设计师，NFT创作者，策展人，伦敦艺术大学创意计算学院硕士，工业设计背景，个人网站 http://yanbing.one。作为策展人曾在伦敦举办《Beyond Nature可持续展览》，举行线上生物设计展览《Biodeign.one》。研究兴趣主要在于生物启发式设计，是链接设计、计算、生物学的研究课题，致力于探索可复用的生物设计方案和数据库。作为翻译者，曾翻译30余篇前沿设计、技术、区块链论文。

Biodesigner, industrial designer, NFT creator, curator, MSc in Creative Computing at University of the Arts London, background in industrial design, personal website http://yanbing.one. As a curator has curated the Beyond Nature sustainable exhibition in London and held the online biodesign exhibition：Biodeign. one. His research interests focus on bio-inspired design, a research topic that links design, computing and biology, and is dedicated to exploring reusable bio-design solutions and databases. He has worked on a range of projects including Pix Moving, a self-driving car company, and Snapmaker, a 3D printing company.As a translator, he has translated over 30 cutting-edge design, technology, and blockchain papers.

Jiayu Jiang

江佳钰

本科毕业于上海视觉艺术学院的罗伊·阿斯科特工作室，科智艺术专业。硕士毕业于英国金史密斯学院拓展实践专业。媒体艺术家，致力于探讨不同的媒介叙述方式，跨越传统的艺术和科技的界线。个人作品集中于使用装置、行为、影像等形式从思辨的角度挖掘当下社会的问题和推测未来发展。

由于参与者与作品本身的关系是我实践的主要焦点，因此仔细考虑我使用的技术媒介变得非常重要——这样我就可以鼓励与观众进行批判性和情感上的互动。我对超越纯数字的各种材料感兴趣，我的主要兴趣之一是生物艺术（或者我们在 Roy Ascott Studio 称为“潮湿媒体”）。这也是我目前的主要工作方向。从某种意义上说，生物设计是跨学科设计。它结合了植物学、解剖学、生物工程甚至神经科学，我们可以用艺术、技术、工艺等来表达。我们可以用生物材料进行设计，模仿生物的行为和形状，或者为了生物进行设计。生物设计本质上超越了艺术和设计科学的传统界限，改变了我们的生活价值观，为未来的可持续发展提供了无限可能。

BA Technoetic Arts course at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. MA Design: Expanded Practice (interaction and engagement) at Goldsmiths, University of London. Media artist, dedicated to exploring different media narratives, crossing the traditional boundaries of art and technology. My works focus on using installations, performances, videos and other forms to critically explore current social problems and speculate on future developments.

As the relationship between the participant and the work itself is the main focus of my practice, it has become very important to carefully consider the technological medium I use - so that I can encourage critical and emotional interaction with my audiences. I am interested in a wide range of materials that extends beyond the purely digital, and one of my main interests is in bio-art (or what we call ‘moist media’ at Roy Ascott Studio). This is also my current main work direction. Biodesign is, in a sense, interdisciplinary design. It combines botany, anatomy, bioengineering and even neuroscience, and we can express it in art, technology, craftsmanship, etc. We can design with biological materials, imitate the behavior and shape of living things, or design for living things. Biodesign essentially transcends the traditional boundaries of art and design science, changes our values of life, and provides infinite possibilities for future sustainable development.

艺术家简介

Sheepmaomao

景观建筑背景的数字艺术创作者，多媒体艺术实践者，加密艺术制造者。致⼒于数字植物，虚拟⽣态设计。永远从⼤⾃然获得灵感，并尝试⽤不同的⽅式表达奇异世界。

Digital art creator, multimedia art practitioner, crypto art maker with landscape architecture background. Dedicated to digital plants, virtual ecological design. Always inspired by nature and try to express the strange world in different ways.

Digital Garden

©️ Sheepmaomao

这是⼀系列构建的虚拟世界景观。植物，花卉，⽔⺟，还有很多叫不出名字的⽣命。在⼈类世界之外，有很多奇艺美丽强⼤的⽣命⼒量在悄悄的萌发，我们常常忽视，以为⾃⼰才是世界的主⻆。构建的世界从来不是围绕⼈类开展，爱⼀切⽣机勃勃的事物，所有的⽣命都值得被尊重。

This is a series of constructed virtual world landscapes. Plants, ﬂowers, jellyﬁsh, and a lot of unnamed life. Outside of the human world, there are many strange and beautiful and

powerful forces of life sprouting quietly, which we often ignore, thinking that we are the protagonists of the world. The world is never built around humans, love all living stuff, and all life deserves to be respected.

Shengyu Meng (Simon)

蒙胜宇

建筑、城市设计、⼈⼯智能、⽣物的跨领域研究者及艺术创作者。奥地利因斯布鲁克⼤学建筑学博⼠在读，伦敦⼤学学院建筑学硕⼠。

Interdisciplinary researcher and artistic creator in architecture, urban design, artiﬁcial intelligence, and biology.Austria PhD in Architecture, University of Innsbruck, and MA in Architecture, University College London.

Slime Mold Urban Planning

©️ Shengyu Meng

这⼀作品是基于黏菌与⼈⼯智能完成的城市规划设计，设计师⾸先通过黏菌的⽣⻓，得到黏菌展开的路径地图，进⽽将⽣物完成的设计与⼈⼯智能机器学习融合，快速的进⾏城市的搭建。

This work is an urban planning design based on slime mold and artiﬁcial intelligence. The designer ﬁrst obtains the map of the slime mold's unfolding path through the growth of slime mold, and then fuses the biologically map with artiﬁcial intelligence machine learning to quickly build the city.

The London Reclaimed by Nature (AI Synthesis)

©️ Shengyu Meng

在平行宇宙未来的某一条世界线里，地球大气中二氧化碳的浓度不断上升，植物的生长速度大大加快；人类则因为内生性动力缺失，少子化情况加剧，伦敦的大量城区变成空城缺乏维护而被植物侵占，并重新和城市融合，深刻地改变着城市的形态。或许，人会逐渐发现，这种有机赛博朋克的未来，并不让人抗拒？(部分原始照片版权来自刘柏良)

In a future spacetime from parallel universe, where the CO2 concentration in the Earth's air is rising up, the growth speed of plants has greatly accelerated. In the meantime, the lack of endogenous motivation of humans causes the increase in childlessness phenomenon, left large parts of London empty and unmaintained and have been reclaimed by plants, which are profoundly changing the urban landscape. Perhaps, this is not the worst future we can meet? (Some of the original photos taken by Boliang Liu)

Cyberpunk Jellyﬁsh Evolution (AI Synthesis)

©️ Shengyu Meng

对生物进行自由的基因改造一直是很多科学家的梦想，但是却受到技术和伦理条件的双重限制。在人工智能的世界中，我们可以突破上述限制的边界，创造出设想中的赛博格生物。

The radical genetic modiﬁcation of living creatures has always been the dream of many scientists, but is limited by both technical and ethical limitations. In the virtual world supported by artiﬁcial intelligence, we can remove these limitations and create the hypothetical cybernetic creatures.

Yanbing Liu

刘雁冰

生物设计师，工业设计师，NFT创作者，策展人，伦敦艺术大学创意计算学院硕士，主要关注由“生物启发--计算机模拟--设计实现“的研究内容。个人网站 http://yanbing.one。

Biodesign, industrial designer, NFT creator, curator, Master of Creative Computing, University of the Arts London, mainly focuses on the research content of "bioinspiration-computer simulation-design realization". Personal website：http://yanbing.one.

Non-existent creatures 不存在的生物

©️ Yanbing Liu

这一作品通过生物学家常用的培养皿作为媒介，通过一系列数字化工具例如2D动画、3D动画、各种编程语言和人工智能工具创造出一系列不存在生物。

This work uses the petri dishes commonly used by biologists as a medium to create a series of non-existent creatures through a range of digital tools such as 2D animation, 3D animation, various programming languages and artificial intelligence tools.

Ex pede Herculem 一叶知秋

©️ Yanbing Liu

成语“一叶知秋”说的是，通过细微的变化展现出宏大事物的发展趋势。在复杂系统科学中，会提到万物互相影响的概念。这一作品是希望通过人工智能工具的生成能力视觉化的呈现两种抽象概念。

The idiom 'Ex pede Herculem' refers to the way in which subtle detail reveals scale in the grand scheme of things. In complex systems science, the concept of the interplay of all things is mentioned. This work is an attempt to visualise two abstract concepts through the generative power of artificial intelligence tools.

Saiyuan Li

李赛圆

1999年出生，伦敦大学学院巴特利特建筑学院学生，产品和交互设计背景。她致力于探索个人与集体、人工与自然、物理与虚拟之间的潜在联系和可能性，通过研究各种材料和媒体来创造具有存在感的表演事件和感官体验。她专注于如何提取、模仿生物动力学，并利用技术实现多维仿生学。

Student from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, born in 1999, come from the backgrounds of products and interaction design. She is dedicated to exploring the potential connections and possibilities between the individual and the collective, the artificial and the natural, the physical and the virtual, by investigating a variety of materials and media to create performative events and sensory experiences with a sense of presence. She focuses on how to extract, imitate biological dynamics, and use technology to achieve multi-dimensional bionics.

Biodynamics Collection

《HOMO》 Designer: Saiyuan Li & Qi Qi

模拟传递能量并延续生命力的生物之间的交流。

Simulates the communication of creatures who pass on energy and continue the vitality.

《Marine Mo》 Designer: Saiyuan Li

提取海洋生物的特征并模仿它们的互动生物动力学。

Extracts the characteristics of marine life and mimics their interactive biological dynamics.

《Breathing & Testing》 Designer: Zeyi Zhu & Saiyuan Li & Yifei Zhang & Xiaoyu Liu

从控制论开始，讨论无机生物如何与人类共存，生物变形由计算机代码自动生成。

Starting from Cybernetics, discusses how inorganic organisms coexist with humans, biological deformation is automatically generated by computer code

Yuning Chen

陈昱凝

爱丁堡大学生物设计博士候选人，皇家艺术学院&帝国理工IDE硕士，是一个充满激情的创作者，她喜欢设计的思维游戏，并用它作为工具来质疑现状之下的语境。她拥有环境科学背景，始终致力于将复杂的自然智慧转化为塑造可再生未来的创新解决方案。

PhD candidate in Biodesign, University of Edinburgh, MA from Royal College of Art & Imperial College IDE， is a passionate creative that enjoys the mind game of design and uses it as a tool to question the premises lying beneath the status quo. With a background in environmental science, she is always driven by translating the complex wisdom of nature into innovative solutions shaping a regenerative future.

Plant Reality Set

©️ Yuning Chen

Plant Reality Set 是一段寻找另类世界观的旅程，不受人本观点的束缚。生活在一个由我们有限的情感塑造的感性现实中，我不禁好奇其他物种眼中的世界是什么样的。如果我们可以扩大我们的现实范围，它是否也会扩大我们的同理心范围？受具身认知和感官替代模型的启发，Plant Reality Set 是一组可穿戴设备，可带您进入有根有机体的世界。由于固着，植物需要不断地采样并适应微小的环境波动，从而与生态系统形成独特的密切关系。穿上Plant Reality Set，您可以像植物一样关注和协调自然的流动。该套装包括三种感觉，包括触摸交响乐、光的味道和根原声。捕捉植物基本感知的缩影，它们也代表了一个逐渐扩大的感知空间过程，同时植根于一个地方。

Plant Reality Set is a journey in search of an alternative worldview unbound by a human-centred perspective. Living in a perceptual reality shaped by our limited sensibilities, I can't help being curious about how the world is like from other species' eyes. If we could expand our spectrum of reality, would it also expand our spectrum of empathy? Inspired by embodied cognition and sensory substitution models, Plant Reality Set is a set of wearables that take you to the world of a rooted organism. Being sessile, plants need to constantly sample and adapt to the minuscule environmental fluctuations, which results in a uniquely intimate relationship with the ecosystem. Wearing Plant Reality Set, you can attend to and harmonise with the flows of nature like a plant. The set consists of three sensations, including Touch Symphony, the Taste of Light and Root Acoustic. Capturing a miniature of a plant’s essential perception, they also represent a gradual scaling-up process of sensing spaces while rooted in one place.

Bicheng Zhou & Shizhen Xu

周必成 & 许仕箴

周必成，1997年出生于浙江杭州。2020年毕业于上海视觉艺术学院的罗伊·阿斯科特工作室，科智艺术专业。他对网状的结构有着浓厚的兴趣：他曾尝试对不同的“网状生物”展开研究与艺术性实验，比如蚁群，黏菌等等。他的作品涉及复杂系统，生物控制论与集体智能，他致力于在非人生物科学与人类文化之间搭建桥梁并通过装置作品与观众展开讨论。

Bill(Bicheng) Zhou was born in Hangzhou, China. He is a graduate of BA Technoetic Arts course at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. Bill is interested in 'Net-like' structures concerning biology, technology and society. He has been working with various ‘net-like organisms’ like ant colonies, slime mold, etc. Bill’s work investigate complex system, bio-cybernetics and consciousness of swam creature. He dedicated himself to building connection between non-human biological science and human culture and philosophy as well as opening discussions with installation arts. He will pursue a master’s degree of biological arts at SymbioticA in the future.

许仕箴，1998年出生于河南郑州。2020年毕业于上海视觉艺术学院的罗伊·阿斯科特工作室，科智艺术专业。目前在英国金斯顿大学攻读可持续设计硕士学位，并且在VR行业工作了半年。Bobby 对将可持续概念融入装置艺术非常感兴趣。目前，他致力于发现、研究和解决社会和环境问题。从个人和家庭入手，以小见大。他说：“每个人和每个家庭都是社会发展的基础，国家和社会应该关注老百姓的利益和需求。这部分群体在各行各业都做出了相当大的贡献。”

Bobby(Shizhen) Xu was born in Zhengzhou, China. He is a graduate of BA Technoetic Arts course at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. Currently studying for a master's degree in sustainable design at Kingston University, UK, and has worked in the VR industry for half a year. Bobby has a great interest in incorporating sustainable concepts into installation art. Currently he is dedicated to discovering, researching and solving social and environmental problems. Start with individuals and families, and see the big from the small. He said: "Everyone and every family is the foundation of social development, and the country and society should pay attention to the interests and needs of the common people. These groups have made considerable contributions in every industry."

S>A<S

S>A<S是一场实验，是对自然2.0中复杂系统的猜测，也是一场有关社会动力学的戏剧。人类的社会可以被看作一个网络系统，各个节点的动作决定了我们的整体行为。蚁群也是这样的网络系统，科学家们称之为超个体(Superorganisms)，它的基本单位不是细胞和组织，而是相互之间紧密合作的生物个体。它们的行为都遵循简单的准则，但恰恰是这些个体的简单行为，造就了整个蚁群复杂的集体智能。在此装置群中，作者将蚁群放入一个人造环境，并通过传感器检测三个蚁群的运动，这些运动被进一步“放大”为LED灯光的闪烁与合成器模块产生的电子音景，蚁群的复杂性行为通过灯光的闪烁与音景得以显示。

S>A<S is an experiment, a speculation of the complex systems in Nature 2.0, a drama of social dynamics. Society is a network system, the behavior of single nodes affects the macroscopic behavior, just like social insect colonies. The concept of a superorganism is fascinating. Instead of cells, the basic elements of a superorganism are individual ants that are working with each other. They act on simple rules yet result in complex behavior patterns. In the installation, the motions of three colonies of harvester ants are detected, analyzed, and then transmitted into lights signals. Around the tower-like structure are many FM synthesizers that produce electronic soundscape in response to the illumination variations. Thus the collective behavior of ant colonies can influence the soundscape and environmental light conditions, giving the audience an audio-visual experience.