Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human Agencies.

Text

2022 - 2023 INTRA Research project "Biological Interfaces, Ludic Cultures and Non-human Agencies. Games of/in/with/beyond Life." This project is a collaboration between Margarete Jahrmann and Georg Tremmel, exploring the possible agencies and potential interaction dynamics between biological interfaces and ludic cultures. In this artistic research project we aim to create a milieu for macro-speculative fictions based on bio-ludic game interventions and situations between human and non-human cultures and agencies. We will collaborate with bacteria, fungi, slime molds, tissue cultures and synthetic cells to create playful epistemological situations for mutual learning and understanding. Slime molds, especially Physarum polycephalum will be a special focus, not only because of their unusual cell organisation of consisting of one single cell with multiple cell nuclei (polycephalum: Latin: “Many-Headed”), but also of their agency exhibition behaviours in solving mazes and re-creating the Train Map of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The concept of Biotic Games was introduced as the idea to digitally control microorganisms and living matter (Riedel-Kruse, et al, 2011) from an engineering-mind set point-of-view. Kim and van Dierendonck expanded the scope with Design and Art practices, emphasizing the spatial and temporal restrictions, limitations and possibilities of biotic games. Around the same time, Jahrmann started her investigation of Serious Play with the Ludic Society and the development of Ludic Methods up to the current Neuromatic Game Art. Tremmel’s work on the ethical, legal and societal implications of emerging biotechnologies was touching foreshadowed conceptually bio-ludic methods, but with an emphasis in the interplay between society and technology and it’s interfacing. Recent work by Tremmel’s include the  HeLa - Copyright Henrietta Lacks Project, where the still living cells of a woman who died in 1951 of cancer are operating a camera, thus taking pictures, thus being assigned the copyright of these pictures. These cells exhibit ludic behaviors decades after the permadeath of the original host. Also, Tremmel’s recent works on the biological re-interpretations of Claude E. Shannon’s Useless Machines and Toys is set-up as bio-ludic situations and micro-performances.

Funding

Funding Category

INTRA

Status

Approved