TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

This project explores biohybrid artifacts as entities at the threshold between living organisms and machines. By cultivating bacterial cellulose a biodegradable, accessible, and self-regenerating biomaterial into symbolic and functional forms, the work critiques extractive modes of fabrication and imagines artifacts grown in symbiosis with their environments.

Drawing on biopunk aesthetics, speculative design, and posthuman feminist perspectives, it proposes new narratives of co-creation with the living. Artifacts like the Biohybrid Device Game Controller and the Grew Shoe challenge dominant notions of production, mutation, and sustainability by embodying care, dependency, and material negotiation. Inspired by concepts from fermenting feminisms and the relational dynamics of digital pets like Tamagotchi, the project reflects on how hybrid systems might demand attention, maintenance, and ethical engagement. These living systems become not just ecological alternatives but relational technologies, inviting us to rethink technology as something we care for - not just use.

This presentation proposes a reimagining of technological agency through ecological, affective, and multispecies entanglements, calling for new forms of resilience and responsibility in our climate-challenged world.