How do you make something look alive? You could make it move, grow, generate sound and colour, and even age. These are some of the widely recognized physical phenomena that can make something look alive (even if they are not).

In this article, we explain why making a piece of design to look alive can be a great idea, and introduce you the various strategies that biodesigners can implement to achieve this.

Advantages of Displaying Livingness in Design

1. Emotional and Behavioural Impact:

Research shows that life-like elements can influence user emotions and behaviours. For instance, some researchers in robotics found that people who interacted with AIBO robots as if they were alive experienced stronger emotional responses.¹ Meanwhile, others have highlighted that life-like robots enhance emotional connections and communication by transcending their machine status.²  

2. Increased Engagement:

For some researchers, life-like features, like animated movements, were found to capture user attention and foster engagement.³ This is particularly effective in promoting awareness, such as in sustainability initiatives where life-like behaviours encourage users to reflect on their actions.

3. Enhanced Learning and Motivation:

In terms of robot-assisted learning, some researchers have demonstrated that robots with life-like, socially supportive behaviours improve student engagement and motivation.⁴ These attributes make learning more interactive and enjoyable.

4. Strengthened User Connection:

Studies on human-plant interactions^5,6 show that displaying plant growth or life-like movements enhances empathy and user engagement. Similarly, a study by Seow et al.⁷ on interactive systems involving Mimosa Pudica plant emphasized the emotional bond formed with plant-based interfaces, improving their effectiveness in personal and data-driven applications.

5. Positive User Experiences with Microbes:

Research by Lee et al.⁸ , Hossain et al.⁹ , and Kim et al.¹⁰ found that incorporating living microbes or mould in designs increased user engagement and positive emotions, demonstrating that life-like elements, regardless of scale, enhance interaction quality.

In summary:

Integrating livingness into design can significantly boost emotional engagement, user interaction, and effectiveness across various applications.

Surfacing Livingness as a Design Strategy

To harness the potential of livingness in design, it's crucial that users can perceive it. If livingness isn't visible or noticeable, its benefits may be lost. Therefore, designers must ensure that livingness is effectively displayed and brought to the forefront for users to notice.

In this section, we introduce a practical and multi-level design strategy called Surfacing Livingness¹¹ , which enables designers to highlight and showcase livingness. This strategy is broken down into six levels, offering powerful methods to emphasize living qualities in design.

These techniques specifically focus on microbes, which is particularly relevant for biodesigners. Microbes are not only vital for sustaining our planet, but they also serve as a common material in biodesign. However, microbes present unique design challenges compared to robots, plants, or animals. Their small size, slow movement, amorphous forms, and cultural misconceptions create difficulties on technical, experiential, and ethical fronts. Despite their potential, there is a notable lack of design frameworks¹² and vocabularies¹³ that address the livingness of microbes.

Below is a brief overview of the six levels

Level 1: Canvassing

A process of framing a microbial habitat; of designing and providing a “canvas” onto (and within) which microbes can live and express their livingness over time. A common example of a canvas in microbial designs is an agarose and nutrient-filled Petri dish, that can promote and host microbial growth. But of course, the canvas can be varied in terms of its material, its shape and size, etc., to produce diversity and nuances in the microbial displays.

Level 2: Marking

Markings are defined as coloured lines, shapes, or patterns on the surface of something, which help to identify and/or display certain characteristics. As a practical, cost-effective, and often non-invasive way of displaying messages, markings can be found in our daily lives. An elastic band (or volume marks) around a jar of live sourdough culture, for example, helps the baker to anticipate and notice the livingness of yeast within, as the dough rises through fermentation over time.

Markings that are made without digital technology may be quicker and easier to implement, although digital markings, such as those created from image tracking software, may offer better flexibility in terms of being able to change with time and according to fluctuations of microbiological outputs.

Level 3: Magnifying

Magnifying is defined as the act of causing objects to appear larger than they really are.

According to Kim et al.¹¹ , there are two main types of magnifying, 1) practical magnification, and 2) Aesthetic magnification. With practical magnification, the intention behind the magnification would be primarily to simply bring microbes that are normally invisible (to the naked human eye) to become visible. Aesthetic magnification on the other hand, brings different emphasis to microbial displays, by focusing on stylising how the enlarged microbes appear to the observer(s).

Level 4: Translating

Translation is the process of rendering something from one language to another, or from a foreign language into one's own. In interaction design, translation often plays a key role in surfacing microbial phenomena by converting biological processes into digital outputs. This allows for the visualization and interaction with living systems that would otherwise remain invisible or imperceptible to humans.

For instance, microbial activity can be translated into various forms of digital expression, such as lights, sounds, or animations. These digital renderings provide a way to make microbial processes, like bacterial metabolism or fermentation, more accessible and engaging. By employing translation, designers are able to overcome challenges inherent in visualizing microscopic or slow biological phenomena, making them more observable in real time.

Translation techniques can also serve to anthropomorphize or soften the display of microbial processes, creating more approachable and less unsettling interactions for users. Furthermore, digital translations can be shared, stored, and replicated online, broadening the accessibility and reach of these microbial artefacts. These methods allow people to safely experience and engage with microbial life, even in cases where direct interaction would be impractical or hazardous.

Level 5: Nudging

Nudging refers to the gentle or gradual act of influencing or prompting change. In the context of biodesign, nudging is used to subtly alter the physiology or behavior of microorganisms, making their activity more noticeable to human senses. This is typically achieved by exposing microbes to various environmental, chemical, or mechanical stimuli, which trigger observable biological responses.

These stimuli, such as water, light, or food, can influence microbial growth or movement, helping surface their livingness in ways that are more perceptible. Manual interventions, such as stirring or physical agitation, are also used in some cases to promote microbial activity or growth. For example, agitation can stimulate bioluminescence, creating visible, glowing displays of microbial life.

The intensity of nudging can be adjusted to enhance or control how microbial displays are generated. For instance, increasing temperature can accelerate microbial growth, or applying more agitation can intensify bioluminescent displays. However, there is a balance to be maintained, as excessive nudging can compromise the well-being or agency of the microbes, potentially harming or even killing them.

Level 6: Molecular Programming

Molecular programming is a genetic modification process that merges computation theory with molecular biology to create DNA-based structures, circuits, and devices. Through molecular biology techniques, DNA is programmed and inserted into microorganisms, transforming their capabilities and functions. This process allows microbes to surface their livingness by enhancing, altering, or adding new features.

In biodesign, molecular programming has been used to make microbes more perceptible by modifying them with traits that enhance visibility or resilience. For example, microbes can be engineered to produce fluorescent proteins, making them glow and easier to detect. Other modifications may enable microbes to thrive in specific environments or exhibit unique behaviors that can be observed and interacted with.

More advanced techniques, such as CRISPR/Cas9, open the door for complex, systemic modifications that can significantly alter microbial behavior. These alterations can range from introducing new metabolic capabilities to generating custom scents or movement patterns. While molecular programming offers precise control over microbial functions, it also raises concerns about maintaining the integrity of the organisms, as well as addressing the technical and biosafety challenges that come with such modifications.

To be Continued..

In upcoming blog posts, we’ll dive deeper into each technique, showing how biodesigners can effectively apply them to their projects. We’ll cover:

• Real-world applications and biodesign examples.

• How variations at each level create diverse outcomes, shaping new meanings and user experiences.

• Ethical strategies on how to prioritize levels to minimize harm to microbes.

Stay tuned for the next article, where we’ll break these down in detail for you to learn and implement. For more background on the six levels of surfacing and their methodologies, refer to the paper by Kim et al.¹¹ .

Unlock the Full Potential of Surfacing Livingness in Your Biodesign

Are you ready to implement the surfacing livingness strategy and its levels in your design or biodesign project? Whether you're working with specific organisms or exploring new possibilities, this approach offers countless opportunities to create designs that are both noticeable and impactful. Get in touch, via [email protected], and we can provide consultation and the necessary tools to help you unlock the full potential of this strategy.

1  Friedman, B., Kahn Jr, P. H., & Hagman, J. (2003). Hardware companions? What online AIBO discussion forums reveal about the human-robotic relationship. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 273-280).

2  Yoshie, K., Sachi, M., & Hideki, O. (2006). Effect of latency of response on life-like communication using a dog-like robot. In CHI'06 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 971-976).

3  Togler, J., Hemmert, F., & Wettach, R. (2009). Living interfaces: the thrifty faucet. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (pp. 43-44).

4  Saerbeck, M., Schut, T., Bartneck, C., & Janse, M. D. (2010). Expressive robots in education: varying the degree of social supportive behavior of a robotic tutor. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1613-1622).

5  Holstius, D., Kembel, J., Hurst, A., Wan, P. H., & Forlizzi, J. (2004). Infotropism: living and robotic plants as interactive displays. In Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (pp. 215-221).

6  Degraen, D., Kosmalla, F., & Krüger, A. (2019). Overgrown: Supporting plant growth with an endoskeleton for ambient notifications. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-6).

7  Seow, O., Honnet, C., Perrault, S., & Ishii, H. (2022). Pudica: A Framework For Designing Augmented Human-Flora Interaction. In Proceedings of the Augmented Humans International Conference 2022 (pp. 40-45).

8  Lee, S. A., Bumbacher, E., Chung, A. M., Cira, N., Walker, B., Park, J. Y., ... & Riedel-Kruse, I. H. (2015,). Trap it! A playful human-biology interaction for a museum installation. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2593-2602).

9  Hossain, Z., Jin, X., Bumbacher, E. W., Chung, A. M., Koo, S., Shapiro, J. D., ... & Riedel-Kruse, I. H. (2015). Interactive cloud experimentation for biology: An online education case study. In Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 3681-3690).

10  Kim, R., Thomas, S., van Dierendonck, R., Kaniadakis, A., & Poslad, S. (2019). Microbial integration on player experience of hybrid bio-digital games. In Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment: 10th EAI International Conference, INTETAIN 2018, Guimarães, Portugal, November 21-23, 2018, Proceedings 10 (pp. 148-159). Springer International Publishing.

11  Kim, R., Risseeuw, C., Groutars, E. G., & Karana, E. (2023). Surfacing livingness in microbial displays: A design taxonomy for HCI. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-21).

12  Armstrong, R. (2022). Biodesign for a culture of life: Of microbes, ethics, and design. DRS 2022.

13  Ertürkan, H., Karana, E., & Mugge, R. (2022). " Is this alive?": Towards a vocabulary for understanding and communicating living material experiences. In DRS 2022. Design Research Society.