Anne-Sofie Belling, Bea Delgado Corrales, Romy Kaiser, Paula Nerlich

What could future interactions with our microbial world look like? How can collaborations with microbes become part of our technological future?

The Human-Bacteria Interfaces concept explores new relationships with microbes through science-based speculative prototypes. Similar to other species and matter on Earth, microbes can respond to signals and stimuli from their surroundings.

A core element of this concept is examining the potential of designing microbes to become living sensors that can respond through light to stimuli based on their genetic design. By designing new interactions with microbes, care and concern for other non-human living beings becomes a conscious part of our everyday experience. At the heart of this concept is a narrative that explores a biophilic turn within the generative genre of design: What if we could design in partnership with the non-human living world (such as microbes) rather than relying solely on the industrial extraction of matter to create the increasingly complex world that surrounds us? How could new relations with microbes build our future homes?

The Human-Bacteria Interfaces installation leads the visitor through a spatial timeline of the real and speculative worlds in which the project lives: from the genetically-designed microbes in the laboratories of today to elaborate visions of future human-bacteria relations. The main part of the physical installation is the Ambient Living Intelligence, a speculative prototype of how a human-microbial interface could be integrated into a future built environment. It uses textile and microbial communities that dwell encased in glass vessels to create a living sensor that glows upon detecting touch.

Come and take part in imagining our microbial futures.