Digital Innovation Season 2.022

biology.is.digital

From 19 April to 31 May, Central Saint Martins’ Digital Innovation Season will explore and celebrate creativity in the digital space. This platform, in collaboration with the Living Systems Lab, offers public talks and workshops for CSM students. The 2.022 edition will examine the intersection of biology and the digital sphere to expand ecological knowledge.

{

how nature inspires technology;
how technology impacts nature;

}

Meet biologists, software engineers, artists and designers who are computing structures inspired by living systems, growing robots organically, and transporting information with biological signals. Investigate how tech is impacting our environment, but also how tech can help with the ecological crisis. Sign up to learn skills in creative coding, machine learning, 3D design and electronics – and to enrich your critical perspectives of the future. Open to all CSM students at all levels but spaces are limited!

#1 Data and AI in the ecological crisis

Data science and AI are key tools to identify climate disruptions and analyse how ecosystems evolve. Meet researchers and designers that use satellite imagery, machine learning, remote sensing and data visualisation to track deforestation, coastal erosion, analyse animals habitats and identify ecocides. The workshops will introduce some of the tools used to explore and respond to the ecological crisis.

#2 Planetary perspectives on technology

How is the relationship evolving between technology and humanity, other species, the Earth and the universe? Where is the line between "natural" and "artificial"? Leading thinkers will join us to give a wider, long term perspective on the future of technology. The workshops will tackle the multi-dimensional impacts of tech on our environment, including energy, mining and e-waste.

#3 Computed biological intelligence

Microorganisms, human cells, and other living systems communicate, memorise and compute by exchanging chemical and electrical signals. What can slime mould teach us? How can swarm behaviour be explored in physical computing? We will discover cutting-edge research on bio-computing, and experiment with biosensors and biological signals in Central Saint Martins’ labs.

#4 Growing bio-hybrid robots

The field of robotics draws inspiration from how living organisms evolve and adapt. How do animals learn to walk, or swim - and can we ‘grow’ robots and teach them complex motion? Beyond the mechanical intelligence of the body, we will learn from the chemical configuration of living cells, and how they are computed and integrated into bio-hybrid robots.

#5 Acoustic approaches to ecology

Digital tools are being used to capture, edit, amplify sounds of nature to create immersive multi-sensory experiences. These sessions will explore how sonic information can help extend human senses with sonifications of beyond-audible signals from nature and how acoustics ecology can help us analyse animal habits and reforestation.

#6 Modelling the organic

Drawing inspiration from nature, 3D designers and software developers mimic living systems’ patterns, structures, shapes and forms. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to learn modelling tools at different levels: design a 3D organism, animate the organic growth of a model, or model particles. We will also learn how computer science research is developing intelligent networks inspired by nature’s technology.