Research Fellow and Doctoral Student
CogNovo Program (Marie Curie ITN)
Transtechnology Research
University of Plymouth

“Transtechnology, Transdisciplinarity, and Speculative Design”
SATURDAY, APRIL 16 • 9:40a

Agatha Haines is a speculative designer researching the human body, specifically how to question the rhetoric of modeling within the biomedical and health care sciences. Her research process fosters transdisciplinary engagement and new enquiries between scientists, health professionals, artists and members of the public. Haines sculpts possibilities for our bodies as an everyday medium. She explores how far we can push our bodies’ malleability while still being accepted by society. Her artwork and designs have been exhibited internationally including: Technophilia and the Corrupt Body (Menier Gallery, London, 2015); Electrocardium stabilis (Bio:Fiction Film Festival: Linz, Austria, 2014/Waldkraiburg, Germany, 2014/Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2015/Helsinki, Finland, 2015); and Transfigurations (CyberArts, Ars Electronica, Linz, 2014), where she received an Honorary Mention for Interactive Art. Her research engages the weird and wonderful things that exist inside us. In 2015, Haines was honored with the Bio Art & Design Award for Drones with Desires. The work was a collaboration with Marcel de Jeu and Jos van der Geest that explored the thin line between natural and artifice by creating a machine with inbuilt human memories––a drone controlled by one’s brain. Haines continues to question how our curiosity––for the viscera of life, the environment, and our bodies––might affect the future of design.

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