Mycelium

Bio Ex-Machina

'Bio Ex-Machina' is a collaborative research project interweaving digital and biological computation through the use of robotics, targeting the definition of new tools and biofabrication-driven strategies as part of the design process, to create structures and for new applications.

The intersection between computational design and material-systems is quickly turning into a new design language, fostered by the potential expressed through additive fabrication techniques. By closely partnering with other-than-human living systems, we are now designing by cultivating materials and applications to achieve novel functional and aesthetic properties (i.e. biofabrication).

The design paradigm changes from linear, mono-directional flows to a process of guided growth, where the constraints of material and production systems are embedded into the initial interaction behaviours.

Bio Ex-Machina is a transdisciplinary design project, investigating the convergence between digital algorithms, living agents, robotic behaviour and additive bio-manufacturing, targeting the design of bespoke bio-fabricated furniture (i.e. a room divider) for interior environments.

The project focuses on designing customised, on-demand objects, as hybrid eco-systems, by programming morphogenetic processes and robotic behaviours for the synchronised deployment of algorithmically designed, bio-fabricated artefacts. By incorporating growth-time as 4th dimension, the artefacts colonise, morph and expand on the digitally computed volumes, benefiting from the transformative qualities of mycelium-agents by means of hybrid growth protocols (i.e. Bio-4D-printing)

The project challenges the current state of inanimate objects and shallow replication, where the physical is a perfect copy of the digital. By letting biofabrication and growth become an integral part of the design process, new morphologies and aesthetics arise.

Design and creation become a dialogue among systems – programs, machines, and living cells alike – capable of autonomous decisions and computing, allowing the investigation of new forms and methods to conceive user interaction.

Thanks to an approach rooted in modularity, Bio Ex-Machina looks at the creation of artefacts allowing for a large variety of composing solutions and deriving physical items. The key to the project is that once deposited the living artefacts are assembled allowing further growth, and consolidating a strong bond due to the biological joinery which the selected mycelium agents are capable of creating (i.e. bio-welding)

Finally, the project opens up further opportunities in regard to possibilities for co-designing with the living. While defining a new balance between the autonomy of a rational process and the initial intention, the designer becomes the guardian of an unfolding process; one that can to a certain extent be directed, while preserving its own operational self-determination.

Making process

Fungal fermentation (mycelium composite paste development for specific application), generative algorithms, custom made tooling, additive manufacturing, robotics, growth/biofabrication, modularity, bioassembly.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.

Future Materials Encounter

Future Materials Encounters are a series of workshops and conversations around the materials of the Future Materials Bank. Each event in the series focuses on a specific material, staging a conversation between the maker and the audience.