110th metaPhorest Seminar
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025, 19:00–21:00
110th metaPhorest Seminar by Domenica Landin (Online Only)
This event will be primarily in English, but questions and comments in Japanese are also welcome.
For the next metaPhorest Seminar on April 23, we are pleased to welcome Yuning Chen, an emerging biodesign researcher and artist based in Edinburgh, UK.
Chen's work critically examines microbes, synthetic biology research, laboratory tools, experimental organisms, and the labor ecologies that sustain them. Drawing on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology, and critical theory, she combines speculative design, theater, and other creative methodologies to develop provocative and innovative forms of expression.
She is currently a PhD candidate in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and is visiting Japan in connection with an international conference on Human-Computer Interaction. We are delighted to have this opportunity to host her at metaPhorest.
The lecture will be given in English. Simultaneous interpretation will not be available, but questions in Japanese are welcome.
Date and Time/Location
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025, 19:00–21:00
ONLINE
This seminar is held online only. Zoom Link
More-than-human Revolt and Labour Provenance in a Synthetic Biology Lab
In this talk, design researcher Yuning Chen will share her thought-provoking work on more-than-human laboratory revolt and labour provenance. She will begin by introducing Microbial Revolt, a method that reimagines laboratory equipment—not as devices that put organisms to work, but as tools for organism resistance. This approach asks critical questions: What if we interpret organism accidents, growth failures, and contamination as rightful refusals of anthropocentric, productionist control? How might we see delinquencies and disruptions as sites of negotiation, offering insight into more-than-human labour?
In the second half, Yuning will present Labour Provenance, a project inspired by her lab residency that traces the vast, often invisible network of more-than-human labourers sustaining biotech research. She will introduce a detailed labour analysis framework, mapping the structural roles of various organisms, their visibility (or erasure) within supply chains, and the common modes of subsumption under capitalist production.
She will conclude with a call for deeper considerations of hidden more-than-human labour ecologies in laboratory practices, while provoking discussion on productive and generative forms of resistance.
Yuning Chen
Yuning Chen (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and a prospective Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Social Studies of Microbes, University of Helsinki.
Working across Science and Technology Studies (STS), synthetic biology, and the environmental humanities, her practice-based research investigates more-than-human ethics in biodesign, particularly through the lenses of labour justice and resistance. She employs diverse methods including theatre, speculative design, food design, and provenance research to interrogate embodied power relations between humans and more-than-human organisms.
Her artistic and design work has been exhibited internationally at venues and events including the London Design Festival, Dutch Design Week, and Edinburgh Science Festival. Her work has received numerous international recognitions, including finalist selections for the Falling Walls Scientific Breakthrough of the Year (2021, 2024) and an Honorary Mention in the ST+ARTS Prize (2021).
http://www.alienyuning.com
The lecture will be given in English, and simultaneous interpretation will not be available, but questions in Japanese will be accepted.