SENSBIOM 2.1. by crafting plastics! and DumoLab Research
We are delighted to be back at Material Matters, as part of London Design Festival 2023!
20-23 Sept
Material Matters 2023
Bargehouse Oxo Tower Wharf
crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research present Sensbiom 2.1, an environmentally-active installation that proposes indoor surfaces able to sense and react to their surroundings envisioning a future where the makeup of everyday products is non-toxic and living-like. The installation proposes indoor surfaces able to sense and react to their surroundings envisioning a future where the makeup of everyday products is non-toxic and living-like.
Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can neither be seen nor felt and yet quickly damage skin and eyes. While the highest UVR readings are outdoors and closer to the equator, regular clear glass in buildings like the Bargehouse Oxo Tower Wharfallows most UV rays to pass through. Even if today’s ozone depletion has been reduced, climate change caused by fossil fuel burning has a major impact on the global UVR increase, causing DNA damage to all living things.
In SENSBIOM 2.1, a curtain of sensing lattices fold and twist, become passive detectors. Made from Nuatan bioplastic structure and environmentally-responsive biomaterial skin they self stain in accordance to UVR exposure, signaling real-time changes in indoor solar radiation to make visitors aware of invisible threats harming 3 million people’s eyes and skin every year.
We ask: What is in the air we inhabit? Can matter signal what humans cannot see? What can it do for our health in a time of accelerating climate change? Can bio-composites help us heal our relationship with nature?
The SENSBIOM project embodies ongoing research at crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research as a multidisciplinary effort to explore biochemically augmented and environmentally active biomaterials mapping new relationships between humans and the ever-changing environment.
Presskit Link.
