On Hybrids

Towards Towards Towards Towardsan an an anunderstanding understanding understanding understanding of of of ofthe the the thelife life life lifeof of of ofthings. things. things. things things.

Eli Block

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Towards an understanding of the life of things

Eli Block Rhode Island School of Design Senior Advanced Studio SP 2016

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Contents:

Front MatterXX Project Proposal and Introduction1 On Hybrids5 Document Body7 A Manifesto for the Living9 Lead-In and Methodological Exploration: The Spectrum of Life13 Case Studies35 Subsection: Bodies39 Subsection: Metabolisms47 Case Study N.01: Mutants57 Case Study N.02: Androids75 Case Study N.03: The Undead95 Subsection: Heritable Information107 Subsection: Ecosystems119 Subsection: Implications125 Subsection: Responses139 Subsection: Approaches163 Forecast N.01: Microtrends169 Subsection: Outcomes179 Back Matter185 Visual Index187 Inspiration, Research Images195 Bibliography and Final Notes203

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OLDEST SINGLE-CELLED LIFE This stromatolite fossil is from the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. Stromatolites are formed when layers of sediment become stuck to the mucous secretions produced by microbial mats. The sediment grains deposit in bands, eventually developing into striated concretions that preserve well over geologic timescales. Importantly, several especially ancient fossilized stromatolites allow us to estimate that life on Earth began over 3,500 Myr ago. Image here by Didier Descouens.

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Project Proposal and Introduction

The Lead: This project merges ideas from biology with practices from industrial design in order to sketch disparate case study forms that serve as a collective lens through which to speculate on the similarity, difference, hybridity, entanglement, agreement, and conflict of biological and technological beings in the world.

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The Problem: The origins of life on Earth are a true biological mystery. While much research has been and continues to be devoted to studying early life, from the very first fossils to novel synthetic organisms enlivened by complex chemistries in the lab, there exists no definitive answer to the question of our beginning. And so life is slippery and elusive. Like many phenomena, it exists on a spectrum, with inanimate objects on one end and the truly alive on the other. But the murky question still remains: when does dead matter become alive?

Both specifically and broadly, the natural sciences have identified three traits that an entity requires in order to be classified as living and be able to evolve: a body, a metabolism, and a heritable information transmittance system. Upon some reflection, it can be seen that combinations of these three attributes classify everything in our universe—from the distant stars to the computer on which I type this document.

The question of life’s contemporary origins is thus ongoing. And yet, seldom are the abundant, designed objects of our everyday lives categorized based on their own liveliness. Objects are designed with function, purpose, and utility, but never with the complete suite of attributes that define evolving life.

And so it becomes the job of the designer—that agent removed from the life of the object she designs—to evolve matter into fitter and fitter forms—forms that can serve their users well, better, and so on. Here lies the pitfall of the designer: the creator’s fundamental divorced-ness from the objects she produces.

The contemporary design process can thus be conceptualized as a form of mediated evolution.

Ultimately, the process of mediated evolution is laborious, and while it is able to match the throttling pace and extreme efficiency of modern industry, it steals agency from things.

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OLDEST MULTICELLULAR LIFE The image to the left is of a fossil from the Francevillian biota known from shale deposits in Gabon. The fossil is thought to represent a simple multicellular organism and is approximately 2,100 Myr old. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Gap: And so this project drives at exploiting the lack of alternatives to a mediated evolution for objects. The project exploits the dearth of concrete design proposals to address the problematic and unsettling uniformity of design practice within the technological world, but also the dearth of conceptual thinking about alternatives to the human-centered design model.

THE EDIACARAN BIOTA

The Methodology: Through a shifting, nonlinear creative practice, this project drives at building a research methodology robust to confusion, a report open to change, and a vision unhindered by practicality all from a series of case study objects responding to and investigating the solar system of ideas orbiting biology and product design.

Collectively, this suite of case studies in turn serves as a functional, purposeful, utilitarian product, which, through its own use, simultaneously and paradoxically breaks the cyclical tie between functional, purposeful, utilitarian design and the modern human designer and closes the loop between product revision and evolution by cutting out the removed creator otherwise known as the evolutionary mediator.

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The image at left shows an impression of Dickinsonia costata, a primitive multicellular organism known from the Ediacaran Biota dating to approximately 635–542 Myr ago. Ediacaran organisms represent the further complexification of life— development that ultimately led to the evolution of multicellularity as we know it today. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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MODERN PHYLA Image at right courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 85, Number 3, Plate 4: Burgess Shale Fossils. The Burgess Shale incredibly preserves some of the oldest fossil representatives of modern animal groups. The specimen documented here is likely an early annelid similar to annelid polychaete worms known today.

The Significance: Applying biological thinking to industrial systems—but especially evolutionary biological thinking—allows one to consider an untapped, fundamental alternative to the contemporary design paradigm. At present, humans imagine, define, and build their own world (often atop the world of other living things). At present, humans mediate evolution and thus indirectly subjugate non-humans. In the end, applying evolutionary thinking—about ways of actualizing objects by providing a route through which they can design themselves—drives at a unique breed of speculation that opens the door to radical futures—radical futures that may serve to refine, confound, or destabilizing contemporary thought surrounding matter, objects, things, non-humans, non-human animals, and living systems more generally. It is the role of the industrial designer to push the boundaries of designing for mass production, aesthetic appeal, and utility. In this specific case, leveraging biological thinking to stretch the industrial design paradigm flings it into a state of uncertainty, where it is both broken and more complete. In this hybrid, resonating thought–state, it is essential to examine elements of our world critically in order to evaluate the moral rights and metasignificance of objects dead, alive, and possibly somewhere in between.

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IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES Still picturing a cheetah-archerfish hybrid from the RTS computer game Impossible Creatures.

HISTORICAL HYBRIDS Thoth, an ibis-headed deity from the Egyptian Pantheon, and Ammit, a part-crocodile part-lion part-hippopotamus demon, play their respective roles as scribe and devourer in this drawing of a Weighing of the Heart ceremony.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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Humans are fascinated with fusion and combination— in rarity, potential, and strangeness. The desire to combine derives from a fundamental and prescient logical extrapolation seeking to understand. In the quest for understanding comes experimentation and through experimentation invention and creation.

But the question follows: what to create from and experiment with? In ancient art and archaeology, Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens used natural pigments to recreate both animals and themselves on the walls of caves. During this same period, the first illustrations of the totemic hybrid emerged; early humans took the most fundamental entities they knew, namely the creatures of the Earth, as the raw material for novel forms. Ever since, hybrid creatures have abounded across media, in part because of the fecundity of the hybridization combinatorial scheme.

Zoolatry, anthropomorphism, theriocephaly, and therianthropy—all these concepts typify the human fascination with fusion, transformation, and shapeshifting. From the beginning, these non-human animal–human and non-human animal–non-human animal blends took on symbolic value, representing complex abstract ideas. It is no wonder that hybrid deities came to dominate Egyptian and Assyrian art, and that synthetic, zoomorphic hybrid monsters can be found throughout many cultural mythologies (but especially Greek mythologies). Pegasuses, centaurs,

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sirens, chimeras, and hydras are all amalgamations of different biological building blocks. At the same time, they transcend corporality. Hybrid beasts constitute a human investigation of semiotics, of an abstraction of logic and the principles of engineering.

Hybrid beasts, from the fantastic to the real, roam our collective imagination. These creatures inspire.

Simultaneously, hybrids present a unique allegory for design, speciation, artificial selection, ideation via metaphorical interbreeding, synthetic biology, spatio-temporal connectedness, and interdisciplinary synthesis.

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A Manifesto for the Living

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A Manifesto for the Living

The rally cry of the living does not purport to decree how or why to live. Instead, it screams for an appreciation of the simultaneity of the existence of different breeds of being—from Mortonian1 hyperorganisms too unconventionally constructed to taxonomize to hypo-organisms that fall short of meeting the harsh modern scientific standards for a classification as living. Life is for the strange, the splendid, the fascinating, and the vibrant and vivacious, but also the ubiquitous, the banal, the slow, and the ignored—the slain, consumed, and trodden on. Rocks are amongst the Earth’s least animate bodies, and yet, rocks are amongst the living. They form, persist, erode, weather, and eventually pass from one state to another—dying and being reborn in the process. And so, in the most non-traditional sense, rocks too have lives. The Manifesto for the Living is for a stone as much as it is for a butterfly, or an eagle, a flu virus, a methanogenic microbe, a computer, a disembodied artificial intelligence. The living ought not care for reductionistic, restrictive, anthropogenic labelling schemes. They ought not be bothered by the illusions of nature/culture tradition and they need not mind synthetic boundaries. To reform, deform, change, and grow is to be living, but so is to wear and decay. Ultimately, being alive is less of a condition and more of an openness. The living share an approach to existing that necessitates a respect for the symbioses and concatenations that allow active, material conglomerates to survive, to reproduce, and to develop, but also to transition.

In our complex age of transition, transformation, enlightenment, entanglement, rhetoric, and revolution, the utility of the static is diminished. Now, evolvability is valued above present state—the ability to learn over knowledge, to change over perfection.

Life is upheld as a pioneer and a leader. Through the adoption and appropriation of metamorphosis, human practice becomes newly inspired by the

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arcane and the cutting-edge; in a world of myopic biomimicry, where wild nature’s most powerful tool—the living state—is ignored, a recognition of the separation between mediated and unmediated systems begs digital ethologists, conservation engineers, and ongoingness researchers (in the guise of designers, biologists, anthropologists, surveyors, psychologists, scientists more generally, and all professions more completely) to produce living work and then to disrupt it. Within this context, liveness expands beyond nature, contaminating, infecting, and animating the inert whilst generating unforeseen complexity in the flux of things. Being formed and reformed, combined and recombined, started and restarted, practices are broadened and made resonant, oscillating between the known and the not yet, the established and the novel, and the understandable and the confounding, in a state of hybridity continually and necessarily mutated by creative transgressions. Thus, a system is produced that is not only robust to, but also necessitates the destruction and recasting of paradigms, the tearing up and throwing out and revising of chapters of religion, belief, practice, dogma, and science. To commit to completion is to inevitably go extinct, and so live forms reject inertness, for even while being burdened as hybrids are, at times, by sterility, they contain a reflexivity inseparable from fundamental symbols replicated within the expanded definition of life on Earth. The living, hybrid form sits on the point of a cultural scalpel and waits to be sliced into pieces, and yet, for moments before dissection, born of pieces, the hybrid is whole; the hybrid living being honors the cycle inherent in both of these states: coming and being together and coming and being apart.

Referring to Timothy Morton, the creator of the term ‘hyper-objects’— which refers to objects that are so large or physically dispersed or so chronologically extensive that they cannot be localized. Here, hyperorganisms are presented as living hyper-object analogues.

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The Spectrum of Life

The Spectrum of Life is a large format zine that I produced for a presentation of my project’s development. The zine represents a case study, whose objective was to document and explain the overarching methodological approach I used at the outset of this project. The document is preceded by ruminations on the origins of biological life on Earth and succeeded by the case studies documented towards the end of this book. Ultimately, The Spectrum of Life walks through thinking related to the design of living things.

The zine begins by firmly defining biological life as we know and recognize it today. Next, the document presents a simple thought experiment, which leads readers to question the liveliness of things in their environment. The Spectrum of Life harnesses biological understanding and uses a simplified definition of life as a standard for the classification of objects as living or non-living. Finally, the zine suggests how this classification system might be used by designers in order to design life into objects, ending by providing a series of thoughts on the implications of such designs. Specifically and somewhat humorously, the zine suggests the creation of new species via the merging of biological and technological ideas. More seriously, the zine is interested in the alternative future such a design practice would create.

Now, you may be left wondering: why? Why confer biological abilities to non-organic machines? What is the significance? And it turns out this is a difficult why for science—but really everything—to answer. It’s an existential why—a why life? Why live? Why us? A 2013 study broached this question by providing evidence to support the hypothesis that life—as a system of chemical reactions that use differences in free energy to construct, maintain, and reproduce molecular complexity—dissipates energy more quickly than

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“inanimate” matter (England 2013); life generates chaos faster than non-life by establishing an ordered system that readily produces disorder. In effect, the study asserts that life coalesces as a result of a fundamental law of thermodynamics—the third law, which states that for anything to happen in our world, the entropy in the universe must always be increasing.

Thus, perhaps, even superficially and not really meaningfully, life may exist to increase the entropy of the universe through its efficient use of energy.

But let’s step back. In returning to our initial question about the significance of conferring biological abilities to machines, one might now be able to see and assert that, as devices which require vastly greater amounts of energy than ourselves, modern silicone-based computational technologies represent a paradigm shift or levelling up in the ability of life to dissipate energy. And so, as designers, why not give these systems biological tools to explore diversity, prototype themselves, and ultimately generate new, unforeseen hybrid complexity?

We’ve now encountered another difficult question.

Like the impetus for and meaning of life, this second question has many potential answers. And yet, all of the answers to “why” or to “why not” give biological tools to machines provide a lens through which to examine existing life and its role. This question, in a veiled sense, isn’t really about technology at all, but rather about scale and significance—about agency. Thinking about the scope of and potential for living systems with capabilities apart from our own ultimately allows us to reflect on, think about, and come to better understand our role as living things on the Earth. Thus, this zine ends with a collection of thoughts and questions it cannot possibly hope to answer. Despite their unresolvability, these questions are essential to contextualizing the case studies presented in the successive chapters of this book.

England, Jeremy L. “Statistical physics of self-replication.” The Journal of chemical physics 139.12 (2013): 121923.

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650 million years ago: possible sponge fossils, leading to a rise in multicellular life

1.2 billion years ago: red algae 1.8 billion years ago: first eukaryotic acritarch 2.1 billion years ago: unnamed, possible multicellular life 2.1 billion years ago: Grypania, possible alga

2.7 billion years ago: likely cyanobacterial colonies 3.2 billion years ago: bacterial mats and microfossils

3.8-4.2 billion years ago: oldest rocks; isotopic evidence of life

4.4 billion years ago: oldest mineral grains

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3.5 billion years ago: possible bacterial colonies

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A body, a metabolism; not all the components of a living system, so something must be added

A mechanism by which some component of the device can self-replicate; a mechanism by which the phone controls its own factory production

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Can a living being be disembodied?

Is the internet alive?

How do different timeframes mask certain kinds of urgency?

How do we approach black boxes, the confounding, the difficult to understand?

What is the moral significance of an intervention?

How does the agency of the living differ from that of the dead?

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V.

Case Study Species

In 1859, Charles Darwin revolutionized our understanding of biology by describing the mechanism by which groups of organisms evolve over time. In his treatise “On the Origin of Species,” Darwin outlined natural selection and descent with modification—two significant theories which have since been extensively experimentally validated—and yet he couldn’t describe the fundamental units of the change he observed. Despite the completeness of his theory, Darwin couldn’t prove the existence of genes, those nondescript data storage units that code for everything which makes up biological bodies and allows them to survive, thrive, and reproduce themselves through time. Following Darwin, it would take nearly 60 years for technology to advance and for genetic theory to come to prominence. It would take still decades longer—until the 1950’s—for the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (or DNA), the twisting molecule from which genes are built, to be discovered.

In the time since the isolation and analysis of DNA, the pace of biological discovery has quickened. At the same time, a new technological and cultural movement has radically transformed human and non-human lives; transistors, computers, the internet, and now smart, connected devices proliferate within the built environment. Technology has developed, as philosopher and theoretician Kevin Kelly describes, in much the same way as life. Technology has evolved exponentially in recent years, due entirely to the contributions of scientists, engineers, and creatives.

and modification by human makers. And so, while a parallel exists between biological and technological evolution, there exists a simultaneous divide between the mechanisms by which life and technology (one and the same?) evolve: life replicates, and technology relies on external replicators—more specifically humans that act as external replicators. iPhone Genetics, a single case study within this book, represents an experiment in the transference of replicative ability to machines. As a call for giving agency to objects, bits of software behave as gene analogues. By conferring inheritance onto traditionally isolated applications, smart devices move one step closer to gaining access to the incredible transformative power of evolution by selection in the artificial environment—by descent with modification under biological artificial selection.

Just as “iPhone Genetics” represents a foray into the intersection of modern industrial design and biology, so too do the other case studies that comprise this project. Thus, this forward exists to call attention to the fact that the following sketches, while presented minimally, are supported collectively by a deeper consideration of the intersections of life and design.

There exists a great parallel between the explosion and evolution of life on the early Earth and the sudden industrial emergence and societal paradigm shift brought about by computational technologies.

Primordial molecules in the ancient oceans stumbled upon self-replication and through it our living world built itself, time and time again, for hundreds of millions of years. Now, industrial objects evolve through iteration—through prototyping, production,

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Subsection: Bodies

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Sp. 01: Granitic Stone On the spectrum of life, rocks are amongst the Earth’s least animate bodies. And yet, rocks too, in the most non-traditional sense, have lives. They form, persist, erode, weather, and eventually pass from one state to another—dieing and being reborn in the process.

Tags: Abiogenesis, Anthropocene, Artifact, Dead, Matter, Non-Living, Rock, Stone Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body Classification: Dead, Non-Evolvable X001224

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Sp. 02: Embodied Applications Digital apps are near complete systems, evolving with updates passed down by their creators. On the other end, users change apps with every snap, post, and like. In this case study, apps are given the one thing they have never yet had: bodies separated from systems.

Tags: Alloys, Applications, Artifact, Dead, Digital, Matter, Metal, Non-Living, Social Media Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body Classification: Dead, Non-Evolvable X001231, X001232, X001233, X001247

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APPLICATION BODIES These apps exist entirely in the virtual, and yet, they have forms reminiscent of physical objects. Here the apps are made fully physical.

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Specimen Plate N.02: Embodied Applications Three dominant modern social media applications cast to scale in brass (Snapchat), white bronze (Twitter), and bronze (Facebook).

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These applications were first 3-dimensionally modelled on a computer running Rhinoceros. The applications were then cut out of wax on a jewelry-scale CNC router before being cast in solid metal.

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Sp. 03: Pseudo-Living Viruses Scientists still debate whether viruses should be classified as living or non-living things; they have distinct bodies and contain heritable informtation capable of being transmitted, yet, with none of their own, they hijack organisms with metabolisms to reproduce.

Tags: Biological, Living, Matter, Natural, Non-Living, Pseudo-Living, Virus Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) heritable information Classification: Pseudo-Living, Evolvable X001477, X001482, X001486

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Sp. 04: Obsolete Devices Digital devices come in a range of shapes and sizes. They function with power supplied by an external source and rely on humans to operate and care for them. Their evolution is mediated by designers and engineers. Ultimately, they cannot live without us.

Tags: Artifact, Digital, Fossil, Matter, PseudoLiving, Remains, Technological Device, Waste Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) a metabolism Classification: Pseudo-Living, Non-Evolvable X001257, X001264, X001328

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GAMEBOY PACKAGE Prepared as if for long-term storage in the vaults of a natural history museum, this Gameboy is thoroughly shielded from the environment.

AN IMPLIED SERIES The choice of technological devices in this series is in no way specific.

Rather, these objects are meant to represent a class of design objects produced in the early years of the technological revolution.

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Motorola RAZR, Nintendo Gameboy, and Unisonic phone repackaged in heat-seal bags with UV printed details and painted foam packing cubes.

To produce the repackaged Gameboy pictured above, grids were plotted on paper in an RGB spectrum, bags were embellished with UV printed product details, and foam packing cubes were sprayed to produce a gradient. The pieces were then assembled into a single archivable object.

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Sp. 05: Body Case Studies Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Still, concretely, there are elements—beyond mere superficial appearance—that make certain forms similar or different. This collection of case studies seeks to explore cultural classifications for bodies of disparate types.

Tags: Androids, Bodies, Books, Hybrids, Monsters, Mutants, Robots, the Undead, Zombies Qualities of Living Things: Mixed Classification: Various X001645, X001646, X001647

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CASE STUDY INTERIOR The following pages reprint the contents of the Mutants Case Study.

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Three pamphlet bound books documenting modern cultural examples of mutants, androids, and the undead.

The body case study books focus collectively on the analysis of modes of being that fill the cultural category of “other.� The books are interested in what makes a living being frightening, or grotesque, or cold, mechanical, aspirational, loving, fetid, or uncanny.

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Case Study N.01:

Mutants

A brief documentation and analysis of several prominent cultural representations of mutant organisms that serve key roles in violent and/or horrifying fictions.

The common tie between mutant forms, destruction, terror, and death illustrates a strong contemporary moral bias discouraging the human experimentation with and creation of synthetic life.

Deacon1 Dren2 GMO’s3 Homunculi4 Indominus rex5 Kaiju6 M.U.T.O.7 Muttations8 On Mutation in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy9

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Bug alien concept art by Carlos Huantes for Unmade 3.

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The Deacon, born from the stomach of an Engineer in the 2012 film Prometheus, represents the index member of a weaponized race of aliens.

Seeking to uncover the origins of life on Earth, the Prometheus expedition team follows an ancient star map to a faraway moon, where labs turned hatcheries for synthetic organisms are discovered—eluding to the laboratory generation of a lifeform that threatens human survival.

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Dren, a humanoid organism generated by husband and wife scientists seeking to produce economically important proteins through synthetic biology in the 2009 horror film Splice. In the film, Dren was created illegally. The creature grows rapidly, sprouting gills and a pair of wings before changing gender, murdering her genetic father and impregnating her mother. In a bizarre twist, Dren's mother decides to keep her mutant baby, a boom for the company for which Dren was initially conceived.

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SPECIES; CASE STUDY N.01: MUTANTS

Search the internet for "Genetically Modified Organism" or "GMO" and you're bound to find frightening images of scientists injecting animals and vegetables with strange serums. In the contemporary cultural consciousness, GMO's are considered dangerous because of the poor practices undertaken by corporations such as Monsanto, which engineers pesticide resistance genes into common agricultural crops so that large amounts of toxic fungicides and insecticides can be used during farming. Thus, GMO's have become, among other things, associated with the use of pesticides that may affect human health.

Still, GMO's are a diverse group of organisms—one that contains everything from glowing rabbits to nutritionally supplemented rice, like the "Golden Rice" pictured here.

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ABOVE A 19th century engraving of the Homunculus from Goethe's Faust part II

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The homunculus is an alchemical concept—a tiny life form born of the primordial ooze. The homunculus represents the persistence of human attempts at artificial life creation, for even early proto-scientists sought to master nature and usurp God's will by producing life of their own. It was long thought that a homunculus, envisioned to be a miniature man as in the above engraving, could be produced via a secret recipe, whose specific formula could only be uncovered by the most skilled of experimenters.

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Indominus rex was bioengineered to be an exotic addition to Jurassic World, a reboot of Jurassic Park both in reality and within the 2015 film Jurassic World. Within the story, Dr. Wu and his team of geneticists, the same team that produced the original hybrid dinosaurs for Ingen's Jurassic Park, are pressured by the military to build Indominus rex from pieces of other organisms, generating a super predator with unique killing abilities. Indominus rex can change the color of its skin, sense biological heat signatures, and use its heightened intelligence to solve puzzles and communicate socially with other synthetic creatures.

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Trespasser (above, wrecking San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge) is a massive Kaiju—a monstrous, synthetic aquatic beast unleashed by aliens to destroy humanity—from the 2013 film Pacific Rim. In this apocalyptic drama, the people of the Earth are ultimately forced to fight these organismal killing machines with engineered creations of their own. Still, these biological abominations push modern life to the brink of extinction.

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In 2014’s Godzilla reboot, the world is threatened by a family of large Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (dubbed M.U.T.O.’s) seeking to reproduce. Surprisingly, the M.U.T.O.’s are painted with complex behaviors and biology, coming out of a long hibernation period to consume radioactive foodstuffs and ultimately lay their eggs. The M.U.T.O.’s are giant and terrifying, and yet, they are not evil, their primary motivation being the safe development of their offspring.

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In the Hunger Games Trilogy, mutant organisms known as "muttations" proliferate, filling the arenas of the totalitarian Capitol's Roman colosseum-style fights to the death. These muttations take various forms, but all are sinister. In the above images, "lizard muttations" attack a group of rebel fighters in a sewer system. These lizard mutts have strange human-like features, suggesting that the Capitol is willing to cross any ethical boundary (including manipulating human DNA) to guarantee dominion.

In another example of Capitol mutts, material from dead Hunger Games combatants is incorporated into a pack of feral hounds set loose to ravage surviving contestants.

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The Southern Reach Trilogy, written by Jeff VanderMeer and comprising the three novels Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance, describes the efforts of a secret governmental organization known as the Southern Reach as it attempts to unravel mysteries relating to Area X—a beautiful and yet dangerous and violent swath of coastal land concealed behind an invisible border. Area X is cordoned off from the natural world and inaccessible to all but the initiated, and so it becomes the duty of a series of expeditions of highly trained scientists and spiritualists to gather reconnaissance data about the landscape’s unique characteristics. Some expeditions return and some disappear, but most of the individuals who venture into the unknown of Area X are changed forever.

Unlucky Area X explorers are changed into animals, into energy sources, and into bizarre, indescribable monsters.

Evolution acting in unknowable, incomprehensible, and uncontrollable ways is played out in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach Trilogy; the ultimate confusion resulting from the unconventional forms of evolution acting within the novel challenges traditional biologic theories as presented by Charles Darwin. Within the novel, a force of four scientists is sent by a secret organization known as the Southern Reach to investigate a mysterious Area X. One of the expedition members, a biologist, is keenly aware of the environment throughout the novel, and she notes that “transformations were taking place here [within Area X], and as much as I had felt part of a ‘natural’ landscape on my trek to the lighthouse, I could not deny that these habitats were transitional in a deeply unnatural way” (VanderMeer 117). At the same time that the biologist feels she is a part of Area X’s pristine natural world, she simultaneously

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On Mutation in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy9

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senses that there is something uncanny about the landscape.

VanderMeer places the word “natural” within quotes, in effect emphasizing the strangeness of its usage. The landscape is transitional, and yet it is not merely reverting to an untouched wilderness. As the biologist observes, there is something “deeply unnatural” about Area X that manifests in mutant creatures and provides impetus for the assertion that The Southern Reach Trilogy constructs a natural landscape in the extreme of the unknowable. When the unnatural landscape of Area X comes into contact with biotic organisms, creatures begin to transition in disturbing, untraditional ways; the unfamiliar and unrecognisable evolutionary forces acting within The Southern Reach Trilogy confound scientific understanding, insinuating that natural forces are more complex than contemporary definitions allow.

Through the strange unknowns and “unnaturalness” of the environment within Area X, mutants evolve and abound. The biologist in The Southern Reach Trilogy discovers a strange creature writing in a tunnel; lacking words to describe its form and behavior, the biologist names the creature, “busy and incomprehensible in its task, [...] the Crawler” (VanderMeer 136). Not only is the Crawler a strange mutant organism—a combination of human and non-human animal elements—but it simultaneously writes about the power of Area X to tear apart, recombine, and subsume lifeforms: “There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you” (VanderMeer 133). Here, the Crawler writes of an assimilation of the human into the non-human and even into the non-living; the Crawler writes of the hybridization of the known and the unknown and the fusion of the artificial with the natural in a yet unforeseen combinatorial evolutionary force. Area X “acquires” pieces of living things and allows them to roam its unnatural landscape as strange new biological amalgamations.

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Still other examples of mutant creatures can be found within the novel. In one instance, on her journey to the lighthouse, the biologist spots a pair of dolphins: “As they slid by, the nearest one rolled slightly to the side, and it stared at [her] with an eye that did not, in that brief flash, resemble a dolphin eye to [her]. It was painfully human, almost familiar” (VanderMeer 72). In the moment in which the biologist catches the eye of the dolphin, the mutant nature of the creature is exposed. The animal is not wholly dolphin, but neither is it completely human. No, instead, the biologist observes that the dolphin is a unique combination of more than one creature. The species is made up of understandable pieces, and yet, its entire form is mystifying—a phenomenon repeated in the structure of The Southern Reach Trilogy itself. The three novels, like the hybrid dolphin, are amalgamations of identifiable parts, images, tropes, fragments, and descriptions, and yet, the series is, as a whole, unable to be categorized into a specific genre. Thus, the biologist’s glimpse of the mutant dolphin is yet another example of the unknowable, uncontrollable evolutionary forces acting within the landscape of Area X and resulting in strange mutants. Taken together, the mutants that develop within the borders of Area X operate as ciphers, concealing the existence of complex forces for which there is no current understanding.

The mutants of Area X point to gaps in scientific knowledge, implying that forces beyond observation and recognition pervade the natural world. In the end, these strange mutant organisms critique modern society’s position that nature— especially evolutionary mechanisms leading to selection and adaptation—is completely rational.

In The Southern Reach Trilogy, those who venture into Area X return changed if they return at all. The biologist describes how, in her attempts to get to know her husband after his return from Area X, she “could never find the man [she] had known inside of him [...] Whatever had happened in Area X, he had not

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come back. Not really” (VanderMeer 44). As we’ve seen, Area X changes people; the biologist’s husband was a member of the 11th expedition into Area X and he returns a vacant shell of his former self. The extreme landscape of Area X and the unknowable and mysterious forces of nature acting within its borders forever alter those who experience them. Thus, the evolutionary forces at work within Area X transform the human as organism in confounding ways.

In The Southern Reach Trilogy, mutant organisms abound and come to represent the failing of current biological understanding. The biologist within the novel comes across the trail of a bizarre moaning creature in the night. Shining her flashlight ahead, she “[sees] detritus from a kind of molting: a long trail of skin-like debris, husks, and sloughings. Clearly [she] might soon meet what had shed this material, and just as clearly the moaning creature was, or had once been, human” (VanderMeer 103). The biologist recognizes that the creature is in a process of physical transformation, for it is “molting” and sloughing-off layers of skin. At the same time, the biologist recognizes that the creature is neither human nor non-human animal. Like the dolphin with a human glint in its eye, the moaning creature whose trail is found by the biologist is a mutant that arose under the mysterious forces acting within the literary landscape of The Southern Reach Trilogy. The presence of these mysterious forces emphasizes gaps in current biological understanding.

In The Southern Reach Trilogy, the scientific presupposition that the world is empirically and observably understandable is challenged—humanity’s hubris lies in its attempt to rationalize and comprehend nature absolutely.1 This hubris is connected to the Southern Reach’s failing to 1.

And yet the 20th century incompleteness theorem asserted and proven by Gödel assures us that, in life and logic, there are truths that are knowable and still unprovably so.

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unravel the many mysteries surrounding Area X, underscoring the incomprehensibility of the book’s literary landscape and, by extension, the natural world. Throughout, confusion and uncertainty plague the Southern Reach scientists’ 12th expedition. The 12th expedition was given a map, but it is described as a form of intense “misdirection” (VanderMeer 50).

The map confuses the scientists’ understanding of the terrain, and through it the adaptive evolutionary landscape is revealed as confusing, transforming, changing, and truly unknowable.

The unknowability of the environment is reinforced throughout the novel, with the biologist noting later that the expedition’s “instruments are useless, [...] methodology broken, [and] motivations selfish” (VanderMeer 141). In another instance, the biologist notes “that stirring of the inexplicable” (VanderMeer 78) and feels a connection with the strangeness of the Earth within Area X. The Earth is revealed as strange and irrational.

In the end, nature, especially the transformative forces responsible for generating mutant organisms, are impossible to understand. Their workings is never revealed in The Southern Reach Trilogy and, ultimately, they represent the failing of current theories of selection, adaptation, and evolution. In The Southern Reach Trilogy, scientists believe in absolute understandability and the religious believe in the mystical; but, the series asserts that this divide represents a false dichotomy when it comes to understanding nature. This point drives the argument of the three novels home, for it, like the books, teases out that there are unresolved complexities within biological systems that confound modern science.

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VanderMeer, Jeff. Annihilation. N.p.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. Print.

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CASE STUDY INTERIOR As previously, the following pages reprint the interior contents of the Case Study pictured here.

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Specimen Plate N.05: Body Case Studies

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Three pamphlet bound books documenting modern cultural examples of mutants, androids, and the undead.

The body case study books focus collectively on the analysis of modes of being that fill the cultural category of “other.� The books are interested in what makes a living being frightening, or grotesque, or cold, mechanical, aspirational, loving, fetid, or uncanny.

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CASE STUDY N.02: ANDROIDS, PAGE 1 OF 17

Case Study N.02:

Androids

A brief documentation and analysis of several prominent cultural representations of androids that play key roles in fictions concerned with human窶田omputer relations and the rise of artificially intelligent machines. When compared to mutants and the undead, androids have by far the most varied character roles, with members ranging from kind and loving to plotting and Machiavellian. Ultimately, androids are a diverse group of beings that appear just as often completely human as they do fundamentally other.

Ava1 B-263-542 C-3PO3 David4 Hal5 Maria6 Megatron7 Samantha8 Sonny9-1 Talos9-2 Tars10 On Cyborgs in Kim Stanley Robinson's 231211

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Chappie from the 2015 science fiction film of the same name.

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Ava, pictured above from the 2015 film Ex Machina, is a humanoid robot with sophisticated artificial intelligence. In Ex Machina, a software engineer is forced to determine Ava's intelligence via a Turing Test, yet simultaneously Ava, with own enlightened self-interests, is forced to use as many sophisticated social tricks as possible to manipulate this same engineer into releasing her from her designer, creator, and captor—a man who ultimately intends destroy her for the creation of his next android prototype.

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2.

This still from 1982 film Bladerunner depicts Rick Deckard, alternately known as B-263-54, as played

by Harrison Ford. Within the film, Deckard is a sort of bounty hunter who's job is to hunt down and destroy quasi-biological androids known as replicants. Through a series of violent encounters with replicants, Deckard shifts from hating artificial life to questioning his role as an assassin and murderer. Ultimately, Deckard's own identity comes under question and it is revealed that he himself is likely a replicant—acting out against his own kind without ever having known it.

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3.

C-3PO is a protocol droid, whose primary function is human-cyborg relations. C-3PO is from within the Star Wars universe, and, despite being built for communicating with people, often has awkward, comedic social interactions. C-3PO has a male voice and a retro-functionalist appearance.

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DAVID: "I think about anything: children playing, angels, the universe, robots."

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"What is it about robots that makes them so robotic?" David asks during his own Weyland Industries product launch video. David is a robot that appeared in the 2012 film Prometheus. He's described as being highly technological, intellectual, physical, and, for the first time in the fictional history of Weyland Industries' androids, emotional.

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HAL 9000: "I'm completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly."

5.

Hal 9000 is a artificially intelligent machine from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal, whose eye-like orb is shown above, is at first an obedient crew member aboard a ship sent to investigate a strange artificial object floating in the midst of our solar system. And yet, Hal transforms and settles into one of the most iconically evil non-human villains in science fiction film history. Upon requesting access back onto the primary spaceship, a human astronaut is denied fatally denied when Hal replies in a chilling voice: "I'm sorry Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that." Thus, Hal is one of the first sentient computers to show distinct self-awareness and a desire for self-preservation.

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6.

Maria is a female robot from 1928's Metropolis.

Maria's character is significant because she was one of the first robots portrayed in film. What's more, Maria, who at one point performs a bizarre erotic dance, functioned to establish facets of the modern AI trope, particularly those aspects associated with the behavior and appearance of synthetic female robots and intelligences—who frequently sexually seduce human men via their inhuman perfection.

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7.

Megatron is the primary villain in the Transformers saga, a series of films in which shape-shifting robotic alien lifeforms battle for Earth and the AllSpark—a mystical device that grants the transformers life. Megatron takes many different forms in order to fight heroes within the Transformers universe, but here he is pictured here as a more recognizable humanoid machine.

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THEODORE: "I've never loved anyone the way I loved you."

SAMANTHA: "Me too. Now we know how."

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Samantha is an extremely intelligent operating system from the 2013 film Her. Samantha begins the film and her own development as an affable personal assistant, but she soon develops superconscious. Samantha and Theodore, the film's human protagonist, eventually fall in love—an event that questions the foundation of relationships and the potential for complex relationships between humans and machines.

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9-1.

Sonny is a humanoid robot from the 2004 film iRobot. Within the story, robots are built and forced to obey the following codes of robotics: (1) a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, (2) a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, and (3) a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Sonny gains unique sentience when he works with a detective to combat an artificial super-intelligence capable of breaking the above protective laws.

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Talos is a giant legendary android from Greek mythology. In his own fable, Talos circles the island of Crete three times a day to guard against pirates and other invaders.

In contemporary culture, Talos represents an early manifestation of the human dream for subservient artificial life.

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8.

TARS is a former U.S. Military Marine Corps robot from the 2014 film Interstellar. TARS is characterized by his atypical rectilinear form and sassy personality. Still, despite being wholly mechanical, TARS is surprisingly friendly, relatable, and human.

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On Cyborgs in Kim Stanley Robinson's 231211

2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson, details the development and goings on of a future space society that occupies settlements dispersed throughout the solar system. Taking place over a number of years spanning the title date, 2312 focuses on a small number of central characters —Swan, Alex, Wahram, Genette, and a few others—as they attempt to expose a dangerous criminal ring responsible for the destruction of entire cities. While the book contains a traditional plot-driven narrative, it simultaneously explores alternative forms by interspersing lists, extracts, quantum walks, and specific conversations with chapters that advance the story.

Overall, the book is expansive in its descriptions of environments and interactions, vast in its conceptual scope, and overflowing with content relating to how a future populace might come to make meaningful lives in space. Ultimately, 2312 is concerned with world-building and with societal development—with history, culture, nature, and evolution.

More specifically, Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 characterizes evolution acting over vast amounts of space. The evolutionary forces the novel describes eventually result in yet unseen diversity and the biological radiation of cyborg organisms. This cyborg radiation functions to highlight the potential for selection, adaptation, and evolution to act in an extreme fashion not witnessed on Earth. Like the fabricants, which begin to change on their own once they are liberated from Crake’s oppressive system of control, generated by artificial evolution in Oryx and Crake, hybrids and cyborgs develop when species are freed from the constraints of Earth’s ecosystems in 2312. Following the “Accelerando” that witnessed the explosion of human populations into the solar system, future populations in 2312 colonized many planets and asteroids. Within the novel, “Lists (5)” provides an index for some of the noteworthy off-world

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asteroid habitats located within the “Vesta Zone, a cloud of terraria forming a single cooperative”; Robinson notes these diverse terraria: Aymara, Tatar Soul, The Copenhagen Interpretation, The Zanzibar Cat, Arabia Deserta, Hermaphrodite, Saint George, The Whorl. The Little Prince, Icarus, Source of the Peach Blossom Stream, Miocene terraria, Cretaceous terraria, Jurassic terraria, Precambrian terraria, Water Drop, Sequoia Kings Canyon, and others (Robinson 154155). The list functions to draw attention to the diversity of habitats made possible by space colonization. The “terraria” listed above each have different environments suitable for different life forms, and so, once life expanded off-planet, biology was able to radiate and colonize new ecosystems and niches. While some terrarium ecosystems functions to recreate environments found on Earth, the majority contain new combinations of animals, plants, and terrains that serve develop new forms of life. In an “Extract” from a book on terraforming, Robinson writes how: “each terrarium functions as an island park for the animals inside it. Ascensions cause hybridization and ultimately new species [...] We cook up our little bubble worlds for our own pleasure, the way you would cook a meal, or build something, or grow a garden” (32). Here, Robinson elucidates the ease with which the intricate, concatenated societies of 2312 are able to produce new environments for life. In essence, making new biospheres is as easy as cooking. Thus evolution in 2312 acts over areas of physical land and space unprecedented in the history of life on Earth. At the same time, Robinson writes of “Ascensions” or engineered habitats unlike any that existed previously; these highly designed works of art provide the backdrop for the evolution of novel organisms—they help with “genetic dispersion,” as one character reflects (Robinson 80). Ultimately, these “bubble worlds”— cooked for the pleasure of a future populace—free organisms from evolutionary inertia and free individuals from societal constraints, allowing both of them to do and to become what is newly natural within their revised worlds. The traditional sense of the “natural” is complicated and overthrown by the generation of novel terrarium

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environments, for these ecosystems are new, unique, and conform to no established evolutionary precedents.

Free from the limitations of small populations and evolutionary heritage and empowered by emerging technologies like nanotechnology and bioengineering, humans within the galaxy of 2312 evolve into true cyborgs. Swan, one of the novel’s central characters and an example of a progressive space-goer, receives many operations that alter her body and merge it with different types of advanced technology. During a discussion about what Swan has in her head, an ex-partner exclaims how “[she’s] got the animal stuff in there, [she’s] got Pauline in there, recording everything [she] sees [...] [she] ends up being some kind of post- human thing” (Robinson 80). Swan’s partner is commenting on her addition of animal neural tissue and a quantum computer (named Pauline) to her own brain.

Swan is no longer solely human; by fusing her own body with those of animals and machines, Swan has transcended the human. Still, she remains in a hybrid state, where the many sophisticated and highly technologically advanced pieces of her being make her a true cyborg—she is part evolved organism and part technological creation, part mutant and part design object. The novel celebrates Swan’s transformation, arguing that she is, counter to conservative definitions, embracing her humanity completely—she is not corrupting herself: “it isn’t being post human it’s being fully human” (Robinson 80). In effect, Swan is extending her humanity through her body modifications. At the same time, as Robinson writes: “Ascensions cause hybridization and ultimately new species” (32).

Thus, by providing a landscape in which space on Earth is no longer a limiting factor for evolution, 2312 selects for and fosters the evolution of cyborgs like Swan. At the same time, as argued above, Swan is not wholly artificial—she is not post human but rather some new combination of human and technology that the world has not yet seen. Swan’s creation and existence confounds contemporary definitions for adaptation and evolution, for it is unclear, even to characters within the novel, where the body of Swan and similar

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cyborgs end. Swan is neither completely human nor completely foreign, and so she complicates the definition of biological species.

What’s more, in Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, cyborg organisms take more than one form. As argued previously, Swan is a cyborg machine–human hybrid. In an altogether separate case, quantum computers are given completely synthetic bodies made from both biological and mechanical building blocks. Swan encounters one of these strange robotic beings while lawn bowling on a spacecraft. She puzzles over the creature, describing how: “the youth’s waist-to-hip ratio was sort of girlish, the holder-towaist-to-ground lengths sort of boyish. Possibly a gynandromorph” (Robinson 346). The youth, as Swan refers to the individual, is neither female nor male; rather, the youth is some new form of being who acts perfectly, speaks politely, and never misses a shot. The youth belongs to space, and represents the complexity of life within the 2312 solar system. Individuals no longer belong to specific binaries, and beings are no longer either biological or synthetic.

The youth, later discovered to be part organic and part inorganic, evolves and is manufactured within the context of complex space industry. Thus, the literary landscape of 2312 supports and selects for new cyborg forms.

In alignment with our discussion of Swan’s personal bodily evolution, characters in 2312 experience the uncanny in space and are changed by their environment; this transformation brought on by the addition of vast new environments upsets established evolutionary thought, which typically describes interactions acting over small-scales. Swan encounters a cyborg boy who beats her repeatedly at lawn bowling and she comes to recognize the cyborg duality within herself. In a discussion of androgyny, Swan remarks on how “in our deepest selves we were always both. And now, in space, openly both. Very small or very tall—human at last” (Robinson 342).

Here Swan recognizes that human form and identity is vast, and while she is not directly discussing the pieces of herself that are non-human animal or machine, the idea that individuals in

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the expansive world of 2312 can identify as or be defined by more than one thing carries over. Swan is changed by her environment; “in space, [she is free to be] openly both” (Robinson 342). Swan is changed by space—she is free to be not only both, but many. She is a complex creation selected for by the space environment and ultimately adapted to it via extreme evolution. Because no analogue communities exist on Earth for this sort of freeing transformation, the literary landscape of 2312 calls into question the completeness of science’s current understanding of evolution with respect to the human.

In 2312, humanity’s hubris lies in its attempt to govern the existence of new forms of sentient, cyborg life; this hubris functions to drive the novel’s narrative—allowing a collection of hyper-evolved beings to wreak havoc in the solar system—while simultaneously cautioning against oversight and implying that there are aspects of evolution that are still poorly understood. A single individual living in the 2312 solar system “programmed quantum computers that now can’t tell whether what they’re doing is good or bad” and these same quantum computers become complicit in the destruction of an entire city on Mercury (Robinson 415). The morally corrupt quantum computers, hidden within the bodies of cyborg individuals, reach a point where they can no longer be adequately controlled, and so they are forced into exile. The uncontrollability of quantum artificial intelligence represents the hubris of human societies who believe, within the world of 2312, that all forms of powerful and potentially dangerous advanced technologies—and even sentient technologies—can be regulated and controlled. The catastrophic explosion of the Yggdrasil terrarium and the destruction of Mercury’s main city Terminator humble space regulatory agencies in 2312. Thus the hubris of 2312’s future society results in devastation as brought about by cyborg technologies. At the same time, 2312’s disaster narrative underscores unknowns with respect to selective, adaptive, and evolutionary forces. i.

Robinson, Kim Stanley. 2312. N.p.: Orbit, 2012. Electronic.

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Specimen Plate N.05: Body Case Studies

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Three pamphlet bound books documenting modern cultural examples of mutants, androids, and the undead.

The body case study books focus collectively on the analysis of modes of being that fill the cultural category of “other.� The books are interested in what makes a living being frightening, or grotesque, or cold, mechanical, aspirational, loving, fetid, or uncanny.

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Case Study N.03:

The Undead

A brief documentation and analysis of several prominent cultural representations of undead organisms that serve as a point of departure from which to identify and discuss birth, death, dying, reanimation, rebirth, and consciousness. Modern media (and especially dystopic media) is fascinated with zombies, ghosts, and ghouls—but also with speculative technological futures and artificial intelligences. This case study aligns thinking about AI and the undead, even if it is unable to provide answers to questions it asks us to respond to.

Frankenstein1 Golems2 Inferi2 Makhai3 Tsukumogami4 Zombies5 On death, rebirth, and consciousness: a set of questions6

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Undead pirate crew from the 2011 film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

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Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein's monster.

Frankenstein's monster, colloquially referred to as Frankenstein, was an undead creature, sewn together from bits of dissecting room and slaughterhouse flesh, that was made animate by the young scientist Victor Franklenstein in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Ultimately, Victor is punished by the life he creates—a thematic element that parallels the Roman story of Prometheus, in which a Titan creates people from clay and water.

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2.

In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, this strange rock golem comes to life to contribute to the narrative; the stone creature pictured above is animate and yet its categorization as living or dead is elusive.

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ABOVE Inferi emerging from a lake in the 2009 film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

3.

Inferi are reanimated corpses that exist within J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe. The corpses are re-enlivened by a forbidden curse and subsequently made to do the bidding of evil wizards. The inferi appear to function autonomously, but they lack free will; they are controlled by a curse that is simultaneously capable of controlling the living, calling into question both the death process and where the boundary between life and death lies.

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4.

Undead spirits bred for battle and combat, the mythological Greek Mahkai are reinterpreted here, where they feature two human forms fused at the hip. The above Mahkai, from the 2012 film Wrath of the Titans, have four arms capable of wielding weapons and a body that oozes molten rock, making them at once biological and geological.

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ABOVE Erratic Boulder by Jessica Ramm, 2014.

5.

Tsukumogami is a concept from Japanese folklore in which an object gains a ghost-like spirit upon reaching its 100th birthday. Thus, inanimate forms (such as the rock pictured above) gain consciousness and self-awareness based on the length of time for which they have existed. While the western interpretation of Tsukumogami is somewhat controversial, the overall belief that matter accrues historical impressions that lead to living characteristics is relevant to our overall discussion of otherness as it related to non-human life.

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6.

Zombies from AMC's The Walking Dead. Zombies come in many different shapes and size, but, generally, they are dead people that become reanimated via some sort of infection. Typical zombies eat brains and/or human flesh and decompose gradually over time, although some are capable of living nearly eternally. In The Walking Dead, zombies must be stabbed through the brain to be killed, implying that their brains play a crucial role in their overall function.

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On death, rebirth, and conscious: a brief series of questions6

Setting aside a biological definition for life, namely a system of chemical reactions that use differences in free energy to construct, maintain, and reproduce molecular complexity, let's consider fictional non-living beings with characteristics of life. From here, we can ask: are zombies alive? Are they conscious? To what degree? And if so, what is the difference between the undead, the animated, and the living?

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Subsection: Heritable Information

On Hybrids

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Sp. 06: Extant Plants Plants are truly alien beings. We cohabitate, at once the same and completely different; plants constitute both the largest and oldest living things and some of the smallest and most bizarre.

Ultimately, plants represent an alternative approach to life.

Tags: Angiosperms, Autotrophs, Biological, Flowering Plants, Gymnosperms, Plants, Life Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) a metabolism, (3) heritable information Classification: Living, Evolvable Non-Numbered

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Sp. 07: iPhone Genetics Every year, designers and engineers work to release iPhone models with new bodies and finelytuned metabolisms. Even so, no iPhone posseses the full suite of life’s characteristics. In order to produce a live device, the iPhone must be given its own genetics.

Tags: Apple, Blueprint, Design, iPhone, Genetics Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) a metabolism, (3) heritable information Classification: Living, Evolvable X001802, X001803, X001804, X001805

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ANATOMY The physical features on the surface of the iPhone are called out.

GENOME DISSECTION The proposal calls for the genetic classification of redesigned applications.

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Four plotter-drawn blueprints with Letraset, iOS application renderings, evolutionary map of replicative descendants.

iPhone Genetics attempts to bring evolving life to the Apple iPhone. The case study contrasts the rapid pace of modern industrial design with the slowness of evolutionary change, calling attention to the relative power of different forms of agency in contemporary techno-culture.

X001802 (PICTURED), X001803, X001804, X001805; X. 01; X. 02; X.03; X.04

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: IPHONE GENETICS

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Specimen Plate N.07: iPhone Genetics

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Four plotter-drawn blueprints with Letraset, iOS application renderings, evolutionary map of replicative descendants.

This document explains what functionality could be conferred by different types of genetic applications. Some applications gain or lose abilities based on the presence or absence of others, while still more operate with inputs from sensors and a connected internet of things.

X001802, X001803 (PICTURED), X001804, X001805; X. 01; X. 02; X.03; X.04

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: IPHONE GENETICS

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Specimen Plate N.07: iPhone Genetics

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Four plotter-drawn blueprints with Letraset, iOS application renderings, evolutionary map of replicative descendants.

Here the evolutionary design process is mapped. It begins with the establishment of an operating system that defines how information (functionality) can be transmitted through digital applications. Next, it explores how the establishment of this framework would shape design.

X001802, X001803, X001804 (PICTURED), X001805; X. 01; X. 02; X.03; X.04

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: IPHONE GENETICS

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Specimen Plate N.07: iPhone Genetics

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Four plotter-drawn blueprints with Letraset, iOS application renderings, evolutionary map of replicative descendants.

This sheet shows the visual recombination of applications over generations of iPhones. Beginning simply, the applications grow increasingly elaborate with time, hinting at the complexity that could develop within an evolutionary design scheme.

X001802, X001803, X001804, X001805 (PICTURED); X. 01; X. 02; X.03; X.04

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: IPHONE GENETICS

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Specimen Plate N.07-1: E OS

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A logo/identity sketch for an “evolving� operating system.

E Os departs from the contemporary operating system paradigm by allowing devices (and users through their devices) to evolve a platform best suited to their specific needs.

XX

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: E OS

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Subsection: Ecosystems

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120

Sp. 08: Digital Ecosystem Map Donna Haraway insists that “we are all cyborgs.� She means that our own lives are inseparable from the interactions we have with other living things and with the objects we craft. Now, some of those crafted objects are coming alive, forming new webs of interactions.

Tags: Concatenation, Digital, Ecosystem, Food Web, Hierarchy, Infographic, Map, Meshwork, Network Qualities of Living Things: Mixed Classification: Various X002310

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TROPHIC LEVELS This map has a finite number of tiers. In reality, the interactions are likely far less linear, forming a meshwork rather than a hierarchy.

DETRITIVORES? We have personal power and data consumers and personal content creators, but why are there no modern, personal recycling machines?

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Specimen Plate N.08: Digital Ecosystem Map

1

Large format print on colored cold-pressed paper. This map is the second member of an open series.

This documents attempts to diagrammatically map the interactions between emergent classes of devices, which are becoming increasingly interconnected within the modern world. Here, primary producers are fed upon by single-cellular and multi-cellular digital organisms.

X002310

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM MAP

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Subsection: Implications

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126

Sp. 09: Trending Soon Climate change is fueling science on multiple fronts, but it is also generating increased awareness about the relationships between people and non-human things. As this awareness grows, designers are forced to think critically about our methods and products.

Tags: Articles, Debate, Design, Discourse, Essays, Implications, News, Philosophy, Speculation Qualities of Living Things: N/A Classification: N/A X002433, X002435, X002436

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NOT A FINISHED OBJECT This sheet was never intended to be displayed/presented. Rather it is merely a process artifact that led to the generation of the following fictionalized articles.

128

Specimen Plate N.09: Trending Soon

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Source content, words, @TreatiseBot Twitter bot, collection of fictional treatise titles, magazine articles incorporating fictional title fragments.

This document compiles a few of the first tweets generated by an experimental bot built to spit out the titles of treatises with themes related to this senior studio project. While some of the titles are strange and nonsensical, others are surprisingly beautiful.

X002433, X002435, X002436

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: TRENDING SOON

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Specimen Plate N.09: Trending Soon

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Source content, words, @TreatiseBot Twitter bot, collection of fictional treatise titles, magazine articles incorporating fictional title fragments.

A fictional Aeon article criticizing human-centered design for not being expansive enough to look outside the human sphere. Ultimately, humancentered design misunderstands life on Earth in much the same way that other disciplines have historically.

X002433 (PICTURED), X002435, X002436

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: TRENDING SOON

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Specimen Plate N.09: Trending Soon

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Source content, words, @TreatiseBot Twitter bot, collection of fictional treatise titles, magazine articles incorporating fictional title fragments.

This fictional Nautilus article questions whether the technological boom of innovation is in fact a biological radiation of new species. The article implies, as similar think piece articles do, that there are alternative perspectives from which to approach life and technology.

X002433, X002435 (PICTURED), X002436

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: TRENDING SOON

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Specimen Plate N.09: Trending Soon

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Source content, words, @TreatiseBot Twitter bot, collection of fictional treatise titles, magazine articles incorporating fictional title fragments.

This fictional WIRED article hints at the realization of the evolving operating system proposed previously. The editorial illustration accompanying the article references, through an allusion to the Lord of the Rings, the possibility of non-humans returning to dominance.

X002433, X002435), X002436 (PICTURED)

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: TRENDING SOON

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133

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Sp. 10: WIRED Cover The mainstream media is an incredible tool for highlighting and/or silencing societally significant movements. Here, non-humans make the cover of WIRED, and become framed within the development of strange futures for desirable, digital living things.

Tags: Advertisement, Apple, Conservation, Cover, Magazine, Non-Humans, WIRED, World Wildlife Fund Qualities of Living Things: N/A Classification: N/A X002578

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SERVING WHO? Both the life of the phone and the life of the chameleon are being called out in this advertisement. Whose life should we be more concerned with preserving?

136

Specimen Plate N.10: WIRED Cover

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Cover design and editorial article titles for an upcoming edition of WIRED Magazine, advertisement design for a WWF and Apple collaboration.

This cover, decreeing the rise of non-humans, welcomes machines into the world of life and design. Conversely, the back cover of the magazine signals efforts to conserve biological organisms for the sake of a sound and stable technological future.

X002578

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: WIRED COVER

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Subsection: Responses

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Sp. 11: Brand Adoption As the value of life grows within capitalist culture, brands will inevitably position themselves to adopt and/or consume the sustainability, conservation, and biotechnology initiatives that can deliver products customers value.

These companies may be the first.

Tags: AI, Apple, Biotechnology, Brands, Facebook, Google, IBM, Life, Non-Humans, Prada, Systmes Qualities of Living Things: N/A Classification: N/A X002630, X002632, X002633, X002634, X002637

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DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY PRADA’s emphasis on incorporating technologically advanced materials into their products is what initially drives the company to explore sourcing from biotechnology companies.

142

Specimen Plate N.11: Brand Adoption

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Redesigned graphic identities and plotter prints for PRADA, Apple, Google, Facebook, and IMB.

PRADA Vita imagines the move of this iconic luxury brand into the biotechnology sector, where designer organisms and designer-organismderived goods can be sold for maximum profit. PRADA Vita redefines the sourcing and sale of exotic synthetic materials.

X002630 (PICTURED), X002632, X002633, X002634, X002637

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: BRAND ADOPTION

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Specimen Plate N.11: Brand Adoption

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Redesigned graphic identities and plotter prints for PRADA, Apple, Google, Facebook, and IMB.

Apple Life represents Apple’s life science research branch. The group investigates the implications of specific design solutions, going beyond human user testing to attempt to understand how living devices interact with each other and with the larger digital sphere.

X002630, X002632 (PICTURED), X002633, X002634, X002637

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: BRAND ADOPTION

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Specimen Plate N.11: Brand Adoption

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Redesigned graphic identities and plotter prints for PRADA, Apple, Google, Facebook, and IMB.

Google Science produces tools for the scientific community. In addition, Google Science incubates design projects with scientific implications.

The corporate giant subdivision’s first project attempts to establish a webbased platform for evolving simple digital organisms.

X002630, X002632, X002633 (PICTURED), X002634, X002637

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: BRAND ADOPTION

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Specimen Plate N.11: Brand Adoption

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Redesigned graphic identities and plotter prints for PRADA, Apple, Google, Facebook, and IMB.

Facebook Labs builds on the work of Facebook AI Labs by studying the emergence of consciousness. More generally, Facebook Labs supports research efforts that involve distilling large amounts of data into insights that allow people to better understand machine intelligence.

X002630, X002632, X002633, X002634 (PICTURED), X002637

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: BRAND ADOPTION

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Specimen Plate N.11: Brand Adoption

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Redesigned graphic identities and plotter prints for PRADA, Apple, Google, Facebook, and IMB.

IBM Darwin evolves solutions to global problems. Itself the next evolution of IBM Watson, which uses machine learning to identify patterns, IBM Darwin is primed to sort data from a number of competing interests and present solutions that consider global ecosystems of interactions.

X002630, X002632, X002633, X002634, X002637 (PICTURED)

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: BRAND ADOPTION

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Sp. 12: PRADA Vita PRADA is a global fashion powerhouse. As biotechnology enables the design and engineering of new luxury goods, the high-end market will make moves to produce the most aspirational products, from novel perfumes to exotic furs and even, one day, designer life.

Tags: Biotechnology, Concept Art, Designer Life, Engineering, Life, Prada, Prada Vita Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) a metabolism, (3) heritable information Classification: Living X002661, X002664, X002666

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IMPLIED SERIES The following organisms are but specific examples of a class of designer beings that could emerge in coming years.

INVENTED HISTORIES Each creature proposal has text documenting the world in which it came into existence.

Organism ilustrations by Emily Schnall, art direction and mockup by Eli Block.

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Specimen Plate N.12: PRADA Vita

1

Concept art and internal proposals for three designer life-forms: a plant, a praying mantis, and a large giraffe-like mammal.

Proposal for a pitcher plant that, in addition to being colorful and fashionable, synthesizes and emits unique scented compounds. The plant-turnedstrange-design-object represents what some of the earliest designer organisms could look like: not human babies but something more trendy.

X002661 (PICTURED), X002664, X002666

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: PRADA VITA

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Specimen Plate N.12: PRADA Vita

2

Concept art and internal proposals for three designer life-forms: a plant, a praying mantis, and a large giraffe-like mammal.

After plants may come the design of higher organisms, like this decorated orchid mantis. Insects are robust to extinction and are among the most diverse multicellular organisms on the planet, implying that the creation of a few more—as strange as they may be—is unlikely to trigger fear.

X002661, X002664 (PICTURED), X002666

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: PRADA VITA

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Specimen Plate N.12: PRADA Vita

3

Concept art and internal proposals for three designer life-forms: a plant, a praying mantis, and a large giraffe-like mammal.

As the world becomes more comfortable with genetically modified organisms, the scale of engineered creatures will increase. Initially perhaps, fashion will yield weird new animals, whose pelts we will desire and whose tusks and claws we will incorporate into luxury goods.

X002661, X002664, X002666 (PICTURED)

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: PRADA VITA

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Sp. 13: Organism Emulator Google dominates the technology industry with Googlex consistently generating futuristic products.

Here, Google spins off a sciencespecific subdivision that models living systems within a convenient web app. The boundaries between different types of life are blurred.

Tags: Biotechnology, Emulator, Google, Google Science, Life, Living Systems, Science Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body, (2) a metabolism, (3) heritable information Classification: Living X002720

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OUR MICROBES, US Google’s Organism Emulator becomes the Neopets of the second decade of the 21st century.

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Specimen Plate N.13: Organism Emulator

1

A 14 screen user experience flow (not show here) and a high fidelity user interface for an organism design web application.

Google Science works to produce this organism emulator, where individuals from scientists to students are walked through the design of a synthetic digital being and then allowed to oversee its evolution within their respective Google accounts.

X002720

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: ORGANISM EMULATOR

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Sp. 14: Published in Science This case study represents only a single example of the broad range of research papers that appear as global corporations unleash their living products on the world. A mirror, this paper reflects the revolutionary changes taking place on our planet in the Anthropoene.

Tags: Abiogenesis, Anthropocene, Artifact, Dead, Matter, Non-Living, Rock, Stone Qualities of Living Things: N/A Classification: N/A X003108

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Subsection: Responses

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160

Specimen Plate N.14: Published in Science

1

Research paper designed for publication in Science, one of the scientific world’s most prestigious journals.

Living beings continue to be designed and released into the world. With them, a novel scientific discipline, concerned with understanding the comprehensive impact of systems, develops into a rich academic field, yielding insights into our creations and ourselves.

X003108

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162

Subsection: Approaches

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Sp. 15: The Spectrum of Life This book represents a moment of reflection, where the diversity of living things are considered, contrasted, and compared. What emerges is a deeper understanding of the abstract foundational division—the biases—we assume when considering otherness.

Tags: Abiogenesis, Anthropocene, Artifact, Dead, Matter, Non-Living, Rock, Stone Qualities of Living Things: N/A Classification: N/A X003200

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Subsection: Approaches

x.15

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QUESTION NO. 1: What’s something that seems alive but isn’t?

QUESTION NO. 2: What’s something that seems dead but isn’t?

QUESTION NO. 3: Who benefits from inclusive vs. exclusive classification systems?

166

Specimen Plate N.15: The Spectrum of Life An oversize zine recording the methodological approach employed at the outset of this project, an inset pamphlet documenting key microtrends.

X003200 (PICTURED)

1

Reprinted in its entirety at the beginning of this book, the Spectrum of Life drives at an understanding of things as part of an evolutionary continuum from dead to living.

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE

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FORECAST INTERIOR The following pages reprint the interior contents of the Microtrend Forecast pictured to the right.

168

Specimen Plate N.15: The Spectrum of Life An oversize zine recording the methodological approach employed at the outset of this project, an inset pamphlet documenting key microtrends.

X003200

2

The Spectrum of Life also asks readers to respond to the implication that objects have lives by considering a number of microtrends that outline a single philosophical argument.

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE

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FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS, PAGE 1 OF 7

Forecast N.01:

Microtrends Agency to Objects1 The Infinite Game2 Primordial Forces3 Our Own Extinction4 Respecting the Non-Human (People, animals, plants, everyone)5 Hope for Animals and Our World6

FORECAST FORECAST N.01:N.01: MICROTRENDS MICROTRENDS

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SPECIES; THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE; FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

1.

Agency to Objects: digital self-recreation breaks the tie to biological systems as perpetuators of technological systems.

FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

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2.

The Infinite Game: the gamification of the digital by the digital; evolution, a game whose goal is to keep playing; technological devices use more energy than biological devices; this ties destruction and technology; the locust swarm hypothesis.

2

173

SPECIES; THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE; FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

3.

Primordial Forces: artificial intelligence that understands no bounds becomes a force of nature, whose intent is unknowable, whose reach ungraspable; in this way, even the smallest advance in technological intelligence could spell the end of humanity; The Future of Humanity Institute; how do we approaches forces as devastating as AI? How do we approach forces as devastating as ourselves? Is the Human already a primordial force?

FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

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4.

Our Own Extinction: “there is reason for any species to think darkly of its own extinction” (Anderson); artificial intelligence seems like a powerful tool for immortality but it also appears to be an incredible threat; will a next step for technology spell disaster for life on Earth? How do we install boundaries that we ourselves cross?

4

175

SPECIES; THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE; FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

5.

Respecting the Non-Human (People, animals, plants, everyone): a recognition of the non-human is essential to our own survival; if there is to be hope for our future within the world of technology, then we must make space for the non-human in our current world.

FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

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6.

Hope for Animals and Our World: embracing the weird and understanding the value of difference; realizing the expansive moral right of everything.

6

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SPECIES; THE SPECTRUM OF LIFE; FORECAST N.01: MICROTRENDS

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Subsection: Outcomes

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Sp. 16: Manifesto for the Living A Manifesto for the Living is for biological beings as much as it is for technological beings—it is for both the natural and the designed.

Most importantly, A Manifesto for the Living emphasizes transience and the act of transforming through generations.

Tags: Abiogenesis, Anthropocene, Artifact, Dead, Matter, Non-Living, Rock, Stone Qualities of Living Things: (1) A body Classification: Dead X003400

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MANIFESTO INTERIOR The interior contents of the Manifesto for the Living are printed at the beginning of this book.

182

Specimen Plate N.16: A Manifesto for the Living A written document, finished for now, but in process.

X003400

1

A Manifesto for the Living calls for, appreciates, and embodies an approach to existing that allows things to continue to live and reproduce in our complicated world. Therefore, it suggests the creation of a new role for designers as mediators of evolving things, rather than static form builders.

SPECIES; SPECIMEN: A MANIFESTO FOR THE LIVING

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Back Matter

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Visual Index

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Obsolete Devices Subsection: Metabolisms Pages: 51–53

Case Study N.01: Mutants Subsection: Case Studies Pages: 55–73

Case Study N.02: Androids Subsection: Case Studies Pages: 74–93

Case Study N.03: The Undead Subsection: Case Studies Pages: 95–105

iPhone Genetics Subsection: Heritable Information Pages: 111–113

IMAGES 1–12; MULTIPLE SECTIONS

Embodied Applications Subsection: Bodies Pages: 43–45

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iPhone Genetics Subsection: Heritable Information Page: 114

iPhone Genetics Subsection: Heritable Information Page: 115

iPhone Genetics Subsection: Heritable Information Page: 116

Evolving Operating System Subsection: Heritable Information Page: 117

Digital Ecosystem Map Subsection: Ecosystems Pages: 121–123

Trending Soon Subsection: Implications Pages: 127–129

SUBSECTION: VISUAL INDEX

Trending Soon Subsection: Implications Page: 131

Trending Soon Subsection: Implications Page: 132

WIRED Cover Subsection: Implications Pages: 135–137

Brand Adoption Subsection: Responses Pages: 141–143

Brand Adoption Subsection: Responses Page: 144

IMAGES 13–24; MULTIPLE SECTIONS

Trending Soon Subsection: Implications Page: 130

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Brand Adoption Subsection: Responses Page: 145

Brand Adoption Subsection: Responses Page: 146

Brand Adoption Subsection: Responses Page: 147

PRADA Vita Subsection: Responses Pages: 149–151

PRADA Vita Subsection: Responses Page: 152

PRADA Vita Subsection: Responses Page: 153

SUBSECTION: VISUAL INDEX

Published in Science Subsection: Responses Pages: 159–161

The Spectrum of Life Subsection: Approaches Pages: 12–32; 165–167

The Spectrum of Life Subsection: Approaches Pages: 169–177

IMAGES 25–29; MULTIPLE SECTIONS

Organism Emulator Subsection: Responses Pages: 155–157

A Manifesto for the Living Subsection: Outcomes Pages: 9–11; 181–183

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SUBSECTION: VISUAL INDEX

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Inspiration, Research Images

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Martino Gamper Chair Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Crocodile/Bear Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Crocodile/Parrot Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Polar Grizzly Bear Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Hydra Illustration Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

IMAGES 1–12; RESEARCH IMAGES

Spore Game Still Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

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Frog/Hippopotamus Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Hydra Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Liger or Tigon Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Impossible Creatures Game Still Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Iconoclashes by Clement Valla iconoclashes.com Tag: Hybrids

Frog/Zebra Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

SUBSECTION: VISUAL RESEARCH

Jurassic World Concept Art Carlos Huantes Tag: Hybrids

Sphinx Rendering Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Minotaur Painting Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Chimera Rendering Clash of the Titans Tag: Hybrids

Griffon Illustration Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

IMAGES 13–24; RESEARCH IMAGES

Iconoclashes by Clement Valla iconoclashes.com Tag: Hybrids

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Castaway Furniture Ilaria Bianchi Tag: Hybrids

Tyrannosaurus Rex Jurassic Park Film Still Tag: Hybrids

Jurassic World Concept Art Carlos Huantes Tag: Hybrids

Velocirator Jurassic Park Film Still Tag: Hybrids

Golem Hellboy II: The Golden Army Film Still Tag: Hybrids

Earth Giuseppe Arcimboldo Tag: Hybrids

SUBSECTION: VISUAL RESEARCH

Castaway Furniture Ilaria Bianchi Tag: Hybrids

Rhinoceros/Tortoise Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Spore Game Still Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Bird/Horse Hybrid Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

Future Fish The Future is Wild Tag: Hybrids

IMAGES 25–30 RESEARCH IMAGES

Hybrid Peafowl Source Unknown Tag: Hybrids

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Bibliography and Final Notes

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Bibliography and Works Cited

Anderson, Ross. “Omens: When We Peer into the Fog of the Deep Future What Do We See – Human Extinction or a Future among the Stars?”

Aeon. Aeon, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003. Print.

Bacigalupi, Paolo. Pump Six and Other Stories. San Francisco: Night Shade, 2008. Print.

Barnes, Julian. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. New York: Knopf, 1989. Print.

Canavan, Gerry, and Kim Stanley Robinson. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Darwin, Charles, John Murray, J. F. Duthie, and William Hopkins. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859.

Print.

Ginsberg, Alexandra Daisy. The Dream of Better. PhD

by Practice, Design Interactions, Royal College of Art. 2013. Electronic.

Haraway, Donna. A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late 20th century. Springer Netherlands, 2006.

Haraway, D. “Anthropocene, capitalocene, chthulucene: Staying with the trouble. Arts of Living on a Dangerous Planet Symposium.”

(2014).

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Vol. 1. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.

Hillis, D. “The Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the Entanglement.” PubPub, (2016): [http://www. pubpub.org/pub/enlightenment-to-entanglement] Interstellar. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Paramount Pictures Corporation, 2014. Digital Download.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Buried Giant. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. Print.

Kelley, Kevin. “How Technology Evolves.” Kevin Kelly:. TED, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Landa, Manuel De. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Zone, 1997. Print.

Maganmay. “A Mutant Manifesto.” SpaceCollective.

N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. N.p.: n.p., n.d.

Print.

Musser, George. “Consciousness Creep: Our machines could become self-aware without our knowing it. We need a better way to define and test for consciousness.” Aeon. Aeon, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Robinson, Kim Stanley. 2312. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Spore. Wright, Will. Maxis, Electronic Arts.

September 7, 2008. Video Game.

“The Future Is Wild.” The Future Is Wild. BBC. N.d.

Television.

Thibault-Picazo, Yesenia. “Craft in the Anthropocene.” Craft in the Anthropocene — Objects/Scenarios - Yeseniatp. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.

VanderMeer, Jeff. Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Zarkadakis, George. “Love machines: From Pygmalion to Bladerunner, we keep falling for our robot creations. But then, what else is AI good for?” Aeon. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

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Final Notes

Special thank you to my academic advisors, for their support, understanding, and guidance throughout this project: Nicole Merola, Chris Novello, Claudia Rebola, and Chloe Scheffe.

In addition, I’d like to thank the friends without whom this project would not have been possible: Sally Elqura, Maria Ji, Emily Schnall, and the RISD Industrial Design Senior Studio Class.

Next, I’d like to thank the Industrial Design Department Faculty for allowing me to participate in Senior Studio during my penultimate academic year. Thank you for believing in my work and my project.

Lastly, this work is dedicated to my mother, father, sisters, the many pets with which we share our home, and the many beings with which we share our world.

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