Living Layers

What does a living material look like? How can its microhabitats be designed? What room for maneuver do we give the living material? Does it shape itself? What would happen if materials became symbiotic partners?  What does their transience mean for material cycles?

In the project, living microorganisms are embedded in materials, membranes and textile surfaces in a creative research. By experimentally linking textile technologies – conventional screen printing, coatings or dyeing and special electrospinning processes for the production of nanofibers – with biotechnological processes, the „living layers“ project investigates the potentials that arise from symbiotic (layer) systems – and also the conflicts inherent in microbially active surfaces and layers. What role can embedded microorganisms play? Do they allow the material to form in the first place and continue to grow as needed? Do they change structure, strength, shape, appearance, color? Do they interact with the environment?

The task was to 

1. integrate living microorganisms into textile fabrics through the explorative use of textile technologies and thus to design living materials, surfaces and structures with completely new properties. The basis is the already gained knowledge of the last residencies and the BioLab research. 

2. present resulting questions and ideas in dealing with the living in experiments, possible applications and scenarios. 

3. constantly document the project and experiments in the BioLab and make them available to other students as a workshop and/or documentation.

The project is part of the research complex „Symbiotic Subjects – Beneficiary Relations and Interactions“, which focuses on the exploration and design of symbiotic systems and the associated human–nature relationship.