Biological Affordances & Aesthetics of Interaction

Abstract: If you could trap a moment of painful sorrow or a deep joy, what form would you like to keep? This project is exploring how designing with biology can allow new sets of affordances and ways of expressing and interacting with the artifacts. Hence to this idea, the researcher is exploring the concept of crystalizing tears and turning them to gold, both metaphorically and literally. Showcasing how wearable made of living things could allow us more humane, poetic, and symbiotic relationships, compare to transactional interactions we currently have with wearables based on computation. As the outcome of the project, the researcher uses a biochemical phenomenon to commemorate chapters in life. Beyond that, the researcher is opening a field of what could be possible in the context of designing with biology and biological matters, how we are going to use them, and what kind of relationship we could build, as we move from machines to organisms, from pixels to cells. In its core, the researcher desired to show that Interaction designers must become material researchers, rather than inhabiting in the realm of familiar mediums. And this is what this thesis is all about, and hopefully, it does not stop there.