Living Ashes II

2016

Collaboration with Luis Hernan and Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa

Living Ashes II is a presentation-performance that feeds from a previous iteration developed in the context of Making Life and explores concepts of life and animation in the context of Synthetic Biology. The design principles of Synthetic Biology are predicated on engineering principles of modularity and efficiency which allow creating and modifying life forms. In this, concepts of life and animation are aligned to current models of resourcing, production and commercialization.

Living ashes II aspires to interrogate the benchmark by which things are classified as alive. The performance will explore protocells, synthetic cells which are thought to provide the chemical basis of life and that, for a few seconds, show diverse degrees of animation.

It now exists in the video format as a live recording at Click Festival 2016.