Introduction

As art is a universal language, we decided to connect our logic gates and biology with art to convey our project to everyone regardless of their previous knowledge and background.

However, how should we introduce concepts in synthetic biology clearly and attractively? Since most people consider experiments and logic gates as too complicated, we decided to include hands-on interactive art activities in our human practice (HP) to allow the audience to appreciate the creative merging of art and science. We hope to encourage them to understand what is synthetic biology by using art as a novel way of thinking and comprehending. This is undoubtedly something that few have tried before in iGEM!

Our event name is "CELL•LEGO•LOGIC" Bio-Art Display. We tried to use LEGO to indicate the core concept of synthetic biology as "CELL" and "LOGIC" are the two main parts of our project. For the "Display", its prefix "dis-" means "negative", and "play(-plic-)" means "fold". Thus, when the two meanings are combined together, it highlights our purpose "to unfold".

Different from previous HP projects, our Display is planned to be as transparent as possible, which means that we not only mention the advantages of synthetic biology but more importantly also the problems behind it. In the Display, we include topics still under debate, like "genetically modified food", "artificial tissue" and so on, hoping to make people realize all the effects of synthetic biology comprehensively upon society.

Content

Our Display consisted of four parts:
• LEGO and synthetic biology
• Electrical Logic Gates
• Hands-on art activities
• Access to Interactive Lab

LEGO and synthetic biology

The first part of our Display includes an introduction to synthetic biology. However, as the factual details of science may be too complicated to understand fully for non-specialists, we tried to provide them with an approach more familiar for them. Easy to say, nothing could be more familiar than LEGO pieces. LEGO and synthetic biology are both unique in the way that both can use standardized fundamental building blocks to build something amazing and entirely new; the only thing you need is your determination, imagination, and a pair of skillful hands! Thus, aside from helping people better understand what is synthetic biology, more importantly, we wanted to impart them with this spirit of the invention and the thrill of building something up from scratch and basic parts. As can be seen in the photos below, the visitors greatly enjoyed this activity and didn’t fail to amaze us with many beautiful creations!

Electrical Logic Gates

Logic gates are an integral part of our project. Previously in our HP events and in our attempts at trying to explain our project to other people, logic gates have constantly been a difficult part of our project as the audience has constantly struggled to grasp the logic or mechanism behind it. Reflecting upon this problem, we found out a fundamental flaw: we never provided the chance for the audience to personally construct and learn hands-on what a logic gate is. Teaching people the theory of logic gates is important, but letting them personally physically analyze and construct a sample logic gate is even more critical and effective. Thus, what could be better than to return to the root of logic functions to describe it using actual constructible electrical wire circuits and light bulbs. This visual experiment can finally grant the audience a long needed physical representation of the originally very theoretically complex logic gates. We provided common electrical circuits, electrical boards and light bulbs for the visitors to learn the signal input and output. The visitors could also to assemble gates such as AND-gates, OR-gates, etc. Therefore, with this setup, the visitors efficiently learned the basic principles of logic gates and were even able to form several fundamental logic gates themselves, greatly enhancing their interest and level of understanding. This is also a strong representation of our constant desire to improve every part of our project and our focus on promoting human interaction and involvement in at each step in our project using innovative and interesting methods.

Hands-on drawing

Up to now, the audience would have already learned what is synthetic biology and what is logic gates. We hope to make people realize biology through a novel and more creative approach, by connecting art and synthetic biology, we empower the audience to portray their thoughts and views about our project and synthetic biology artistically by presenting them vividly on paper cards. This drawing activity not only stimulates them to process the information they receive into corresponding logical images in their heads first, but they are also able to add in their own authenticity and imaginations into these corresponding images to produce a work of art that symbolizes their passion and fascination of what synthetic biology is and what it can be. For instance, after we explained to them the concept of logic gates, they had the opportunity to draw their own logic gates on paper. With this single theme alone, we have already collected a multitude of great works that although all link to the general topic, but portray it in concepts and styles that are so diverse and unique that it is just amazing. We hope that this art activity can also make people realize the uniqueness, independence, and creativity that is similarly reflected in synthetic biology research.

See the artworks by the audiences here! (Please scroll down to see more)

Access to Interactive Lab

Our interactive lab presented the audience with a "lab model" that we built, including many small laboratory equipments (prior sterilized for safety) that are commonly used. This provides a more direct way for visitors to understand discoveries made in the lab. At the same time, we also presented various photographs to aid the visitors in understanding the research lab. During the interactions with the visitors, we also conducted some training on laboratory safety and introduced necessary sterility procedures to the visitors.

Details and Feedbacks

In consideration that not everyone may have a deep understanding of synthetic biology and our project, we carefully designed a brochure to guide the audience to know what to do in our Display. Viewers were further encouraged to write down their suggestions about the Display and their views about the ethical problems in synthetic biology.

Bio-Art Display was hugely successful as not only did we collect a lot of useful feedback, which provided us with new insights on public perspectives about synthetic biology and our project, but also successfully spread awareness about these issues in a novel but easily understood way!

Some of the feedbacks are summarized below:
• Most people support the genetic manipulation of cells because the advancement of technology will always require some experimentation. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation can be used in medical treatments, it will definitely have a positive impact on the world.
• Our projects use "Binary" as a language for cells to communicate, but this usage actually raised discussions between audiences and our team members. For computers, binary is, of course, the simplest way of thinking. However, is this also true for cells? Alternatively, what is the basic language for intelligence?
• "Genetically modified organisms (GMO)" is a hot topic in China because people always care about things that are closely related to them. As a result, visitors are all very curious about whether GMO will harm their health.
• A feedback about the display itself. It is thought that the coverage of the Display is too broad. Therefore, it would be better if we could choose a more specific topic to discuss in the future.

Photo Gallery