#013: Interrogating Our "Better" Futures - Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg

Biosphere 2 Podcast

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. Daisy is an artist examining our fraught relationships with nature and technology. Through artworks, writing, and curatorial projects, Daisy’s work explores subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence, exobiology, synthetic biology, conservation, biodiversity, and evolution, as she investigates the human impulse to “better” the world. Daisy has spent over ten years experimentally engaging with the field of synthetic biology, developing new roles for artists and designers. She is lead author of Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology’s Designs on Nature (MIT Press, 2014), and in 2017 completed Better, her PhD by practice, at London’s Royal College of Art (RCA), interrogating how powerful dreams of “better” futures shape the things that get designed. Daisy studied architecture at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, and received her MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art. Daisy won the World Technology Award for design in 2011, the London Design Medal for Emerging Talent in 2012, and the Dezeen Changemaker Award 2019. Her work has twice been nominated for Designs of the Year (2011, 2015). Daisy exhibits internationally, including at MoMA New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, the National Museum of China, and the Royal Academy. Daisy is a resident at Somerset House Studios in London, and is working on a major new commission for the Eden Project for 2021. I highly encourage you to check out Daisy's website linked in the show notes BEFORE listening to the podcast. We refer to a number of her works by title, and do our best to describe each project in depth for our listeners, but her work is best appreciated through the visual medium. https://www.daisyginsberg.com/work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEeBeEfGoYU&t=3893s