The Materiality of Computation

Georg Trogemann

Biological Machines and the Materiality of Computation

University of Bergen, Norway, 26.-27. January 2012

Workshop: Synthetic Biology, views from the future(s)

Organisation: Dorothy Dankel, Ana Delgado, Silvio Funtowicz, Roger Strand.

During this workshop, scientists, social scientists, philosophers and an artist convened to discuss the emerging field of synthetic biology. By contextualizing synthetic biology as a technoscience and an emergent technology, the workshop participants each addressed concrete issues related to the epistemology, values and applications in synthetic biology with a focus towards the future. In which ways is synthetic biology ‘emerging’? How is the metaphor of ‘programming life’ performed in synthetic biology designs and how could this inform future ways of representing and intervening life? How may current practices such as computer-based designing and open source sharing transform biology? What are the most likely, possible or even plausible designs that synthetic biology will produce?