James King

To kick off the Design Interactions Synthetic Biology project, Daisy Ginsberg and I ran a two day teaching workshop based on our experience at the 2009 iGem Competition.

Here’s the introduction from the brief we gave the students:

Fact and Fiction at iGEM

In this workshop we want you to explore the relationship between fact and fiction in the field of synthetic biology. Fantasy and hype aren’t necessarily a bad thing and play an important role in the field. Many of the main proponents of synthetic biology are themselves excellent story-tellers and have managed to define a vision that draws attention, talent, funding and belief.

In the first part of the workshop, we want you to gain an understanding of the underlying science (the “biological reality”) and learn to distinguish it from the hype.

In the second part of the workshop we want you to create your own synbio fiction. This might confirm or challenge the vision put forth by the synthetic biologists themselves.

The E.chromi project is on display in the Windows of the Wellcome Trust until April 2010. A collaboration between myself, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and the 2009 University of Cambridge iGEM team. More information about the exhibition which is curated by Dunne and Raby can be found here.

Photo by Dunne and Raby

The Genomics Forum is a research centre at Edinburgh University. I was invited with Daisy Ginsberg to visit the centre and give two lectures on our work.

Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow was shown at What If…, Science Gallery, Dublin, 8 October – 13 December, 2009. The exhibition was curated by Dunne and Raby.

Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow was shown at Freeze!, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, 25 July – 27 September, 2009.

My projects Potential Pharmacies and Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow were shown at the Saint Étienne International Design Biennial, 15 – 30 November 2008.

My projects Fossils from a Nanotech Future and Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow were shown at Design and the Elastic Mind, MoMA, New York, 24 February – May 12, 2008.

Potential Pharmacies was shown at the Helen Hamlyn Centre’s Vital Signs exhibition held at the Royal College of Art, London, 21 September – 4 October 2007.

My project, Fossils from a Nanotech Future, went on display at the 2nd International Art and Science Exhibition, held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, 11 – 25 November 2006.