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Objectives
- To understand nature’s strategies and human ways of imitating them
- To imagine and maybe conceive future systems based on the observation of natural principles
Contents
Bio-mimicry is defined as the imitation of models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving human problems. More than any other species, human beings borrow technics, tricks and attributes to other species, compensating the inherent “lack of qualities” of their non-specialized body by various tools and apparatuses inspired by nature. They started with artificial claws made of stone and now they can fly to other planets! They multiplied their speed, their strength, their capacities to hide, hunt or seduce by imitating other animals’ features, or by building structures and patterns inspired by natural models, but they also increased and exteriorized their memory, exceeding the realm of naturally-made inventions. Today, following on Janine Benyus’ lead, bio-mimicry has become a moto for designers and engineers, using the most advanced technologies to understand how geckos walk on walls, how sharks swim, how octopuses move, how kingfishers dive, how sunflowers grow, or even how sea worms breathe without oxygen. And following on their lead, we build better tiles, swimming suits, robots, trains, solar panels, or we better preserve organs for transplantation. Today, with biotechnologies, we are even capable of creating life itself from artificial elements.
How designers, engineers and artists create forms from natural strategies, systems, forms, structures and patterns that designers and engineers may observe and translate into objects or representations? On the other hand, how does nature develop cunning strategies, systems and forms that designers may observe and translate into objects or representations, from animal, mineral, vegetal structures, forms and patterns? Does bio-mimicry have downsides or only advantages? What would an unnaturally-inspired technology work? Can we imagine natural features that would not be driven by necessity?
Methodology
We will read texts by biologists, scientists, novelists and philosophers, examine many examples of man-made systems, robots and objects but also meet scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Colloïds and Interfaces in Potsdam to better understand how they proceed to unravel the structures of the natural world and build systems that are inspired by them. Students will be invited to present a case-study or to imagine their own bio-inspired model, based on a creative use of the references and state-of-the-art. |
