Research Studio: Designing Life, Designing Dialogue – Nina Willems & Ties van de Werff

Designing Life, Designing Dialogue is a research studio and an elective project of choice in the second year of the iArts programme, developed by iArts and the research centre for Arts, Autonomy and the Public Sphere. For eight weeks spanning February to April 2020, a group of six students and two teachers engage with the scientific case of pseudomonas putida, a designed microbe that can be used in bio-industrial processes as platform for engineering other microorganisms at a genetic level. By practicing artistic engagement through theatrical methods, both teachers and students explore how to engage with an abstract yet specific scientific case. How to create an artistic space in the scientific world of P. putida? What artistic and non-artistic skills and strategies can be used to relate meaningfully to such a scientific development?