Living Techno-Natures

Evolutionary algorithms that imitate nature to solve technical problems, synthetic DNA that turns plants into living data archives, and the use of autonomous machines inside living bodies are just a few examples suggesting that the boundaries between life and technology have become fundamentally blurred in the early 21st century.

While the technologization of organisms has a longer history, an increasing biologization of technology can be observed today in bioinformatics, molecular biology, and other fields. This development is characterized by the crossing of disciplinary and methodological boundaries. It is becoming increasingly difficult to say where the boundaries between biology and technology, science and economics, and representation and intervention lie. In fact, organisms and technologies can no longer be thought of as ontologically distinctive entities. Rather, it seems that biological and technical systems are becoming increasingly interwoven and exchanging properties in the process. Against this backdrop, nature itself becomes more and more a construction kit and a resource for technological design and economic investment. Proposing the notion of “biohybrid objects” for complex systems consisting of natural and artificial components that not only imitate living beings but also share their basic principles, this edited volume explores the remarkable circulation of morphological knowledge between biology and technology.

Bringing together innovative interdisciplinary contributions, the volume aims to provide insights on the emergence and nature of biohybrid objects from philosophy, epistemology, and science and technology studies.

Josef Barla is a postdoctoral researcher in the sociology of science and technology and principal investigator of the German Research Foundation (DFG)-funded research training group Fixing Futures: Technologies of Anticipation in Contemporary Societies at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His research lies at the intersection of biopolitics, ecology, and technology.

Marco Tamborini teaches philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His research focuses on the history and philosophy of biology, bioinspired and engineering disciplines (e.g., bionics, biorobotics, synthetic biology, architectural design, embodied AI), philosophical anthropology, philosophy of technology and technoscience, as well as philosophy of culture from the 19th century to the present.