Toy-ize biology
We never stop playing as we grow older. Play just changes. What once was a doll, a teddy bear or a ball might now be a car, a building, social media, or clothes. The latest theme for the Ginkgo Creative residency was, indeed, play. The resident’s work, a LEGO kit to build a mini-bio world, is a perfect example of biologizing toys.
Here, I wonder: what does it look like to toy-ize biology? LEGO, for instance, manufactures billions of pieces that are precise down to scales smaller than a millimeter. They’re modular and replicable; scalable.
Now think about a seed: this zip file that contains the genetic blueprint of the design, functions and features of an organism to be unzipped. LIFE’s UI is so magical that you don’t even need to know what the right biochemical buttons are to press. You just apply water, nutrients, the right temperature and sunlight et voilà, a treen has grown.
While LEGO makes 70k pieces per hour, an average human’s output is in the 1quintillion units (?). Biology is already modular, replicable, scalable. It is the stories that we tell around those toys, like the one I just told you about the seed, that often come in the second place.
Toys, whether they’re clothes, computers, LEGOs or apples, are objects that bring about values into the world. They make people happy, bring you to the moment. As we toy-ize biology, it is worth thinking about the processes, materials, machines, and people that make them, distribute them, and play with them.
Biophysics peeps, could you please fact-check? :)