GMU:Synthetic Biology/Diary

Week 1

5. August 2010

After settling on the name "Super Cell" for our Synthetic Biology Supermarket we are working on products and details of the webshop. Points of discussion are the unification of the products and a guideline defining the modus operandi for our products in generell, something every product in the shop has to pass. Mila works on a visualization on BactoSafe - a individualized security system. We are tinkering on an idea which combines cuisine and perfumery - a fantasm of synthetically enhanced farts. Also we´re brooding on the visual realization of the DNA-Pet and the Yoga-Blob. late night-thoughts: Talking about the visualizations of Christian. Great to see a first image and start getting deeper into it. Thoughts of making it more organic and less industrial. So naturally the owner could be a farmer, with special interests. As the real shop would get more important this way, our webshop would transform into something else - more a representation, a platform, a guideline, an explanation to see the farm/shop , the whole experience. Less mass products - more individual, nicheproducts, small products.

6. August

Morning meeting with Patrick, web-design. He showes us his first draft for the page. We find it´s a bit harsh to start with the products on the first page. A intruduction needs to be made- with a static image, some explaning words or another media -> VIDEO. Main part will be a slide-show allowing the user to go through the different products of a category quickly. The feature of the slide-show will enable us to put the products in an order that makes sense to us and leaves the static view on only one product but gives an impression of a sortiment, a line, a social construct. By clicking onto the product in the slide you will come to the detailed product site. Video may be working in the slide-show as well, maybe - will be checked… The brainstorming of the meeting with the Heidelbergians in July is finally packed in a textfile - a pool for future ideas or extensions of already existing ones.

7. August We reflected the results again and tried to combine them. We made some sketches for some products to visualise them in Cinema 4D.

9. August

Workshop in Cinema 4D by Sebastian Hundertmark. Christian did the first renderings for the ciano-fuel-station and the deo-yeast.

10. August

Skype- meeting with the whole group, concerning our new ideas of the basic shop conceps. We´ll meet again in person on the 26. August, which marks a milestone in the project. The process of finding new ideas is is now in its final stage. Starting next week we will focus on the realization of the products. In the meantime we will work on the storyboard for the introduction of the webshop.

11. August

More visualization trials and final collecting of ideas.

12. August Group meeting with coffee and cake!! Talking about the different products everybody is working on individually and bringing them together by presenting them in an order that makes sense in a product-line/category. First draft of an bacterial fridge and on BactoSafe, a biological security system are presented. Mila explained her idea of the balcony garden and the way she wants to create a diversity between organic, vegan and synthetic manipulated lifestyles. As we were talking about vegetables we touched trecking-veggies > super-fast growing vegetables for tracking and camping enabling you to grow breakfgast while sleeping. We thought of cancer-manipulated veggies and have to research if that makes any sense. For the product "Odor Cuisine" we kind of agreed to show it in the form of a cookbook, containing also pictures of methodes and new applications concerning olfactory output :) . The Drug delivery system, an iGEM project from Emperial college in 2009 could be very helpful to place the manipulated e-coli bacs. Last two topics were Baby´s best by mila , a product which is already pretty clear , but needs some decisions on the visualization now.

14.August

Christian presented his new biological findings for plant protecting systems. He shows the first 3D designs of the modular ant-plant-protector-system to protect your crop plants and the spore-contamination-system to kill parasites naturaly. After this we made a brainstorm of possibilities to visualise the consequences of this products.

Week 2

17. August 2010

First meeting with Anna and Jana, both involved in the filming for ReCoBrain. We discussed the timetable for the film-shooting and postproduction - the deadline is set very close before the flight to Boston. As we´re all busy, there won´t be much time for it and filming needs to be done fast. One point on the agenda for the meeting on 27. August has to be the presentation at MIT. Second round of the meeting: New projects from Vanessa were discussed - rest of it was bringing up ideas from last week in a nicer wrapping.

18. August

We made a new mock-up for the page with structural changes, a new logo and improved design. Shortly after a meeting to update with the webteam. Picking out 5-10 projects to visualize fully and integrate it in the page until the 27. August. Again we have a checklist that every chosen project has to pass in order to get realized/visualized quickly : main points on the list are : is the idea fully relating to SynBio ? ; can it be described in a few words? ; are the explanational pictures also beautiful ? Selection is made and sent around… More projects need to be ready for the page within the next few days.

19. August

Working on webpage, writing product descriptions where needed, drawing sketches for the product photos (of balcony menu and odeur cuisine). Trivia: we starting playing frisbee after lunch for 20 min and again after working on the pc - already feel muscles rising and brain-expansion due to amplified air-inducement.

20. August

Gardening and plant shaping/sculpturing. Writing on a story taking aim on a corporate identity.

21. / 22. August

Visualization for Odeur Cuisine and Contraception in combination with 23andMe. Texts for webshop.

23. August

Agenda for the workshop is planned.

Week 3

24. August

Christian and Florian are working on renderings for the webpage and christian on his project. Photos for Odeur Cuisine.

25. August

Version of the Homepage is online. The material for it is transferred into the right format. Photos are photoshopped…

26. August

Meeting with Mareike who plans a radio feature on the project. Putting the projects and pictures on the homepage. Welcoming the guys from Heidelberg with barbecue and beer…

27. August

Workshop with the guys from Heidelberg. Discussing the bacteria game, the supermarket and it´s products and reviewing the wet lab project by the HD team. Afterwards we worked in smaller groups on technical issues concerning individual products of the supermarket. The meeting helped a lot and pushed some of the ideas really forward.

--Ck schroeder 18:36, 18 August 2010 (CEST)

28/29. August

A weekend to awaken to the final product statements by transforming the discussions with the Heidelberg-crew to visual concepts.

Week 4

30. August

A week full of work began – but it was hard to get it started after the meeting with the Heidelberg-crew the week before. With this reached milestone our internal deadlines were gone. But as Prof. Ursula Damm wants to present some of our products on a conference called „life 3.0. and the future of evolution“ in Berlin on the 17th we have to hurry up anyway.

31. August

We had an interview with a guy from “BioTech TV” who wanted to get an overview about our project. Asking – of course – why we as artists and designers take part in a competition about synthetic biology. Well - I really do believe that we can start a discussion in society, to bring the new technology of synthetic biology to the peoples awareness by giving it a context , the feeling of “yes its here, its real, its every day life...”. Well – you may watch the interview online after the transmission in the beginning of november.

01. September

The products „Perfect Body“, „AphrodiTec“, „Pit Crisp“, "ciano fuel station", and „AntPlantProtector“ should be finnaly visualized until the 17th, if possible also the Image film about the "Super Cell Shop" – so each product developer concretized concepts, met photographers and spent hours at the computer.

02. September

Preparation of our next meeting. Working on the roadmap and structuring the papers on the walls in our working room. We made product categories and pointed out how far we are and what kind of products are missing. As we have the list of things a product should fulfill everyone gets things as descriptive texts, contextualization and visualizations ready.

03. September

On Friday we went through our new roadmap which includes the topics „wiki“, „super cell shop“, „jamboree“ and „PR“ and structures the time from now until the iGEM Jamboree in November. It says clearly what has to be done until when and who has the responsibility. There is a hell of a lot to do but we can make it in time if we stick to the timetable.

04./05. September

On the weekend and the beginning of the week we worked in our workspace, each on own products, to clear last open questions about the products to make the fiction feel real to the visitor of „super cell“.

Week 5

06. September

Two month until the iGEM Jamboree. Planning the image video of 'super cell' that should later on welcome the webshop visitors. Meeting with Jette who will take the pictures for some products and also meeting Tristan who might do the „ReCoBrain“ video spot. But as there are some problems in the coordination of the people from Weimar and the involved people from Heidelberg the future of „ReCoBrain“ is quite unsure at the moment.

07. September

Tuesday went by with updating each other, as the team was not complete the last week. We discussed and concretized ideas and sketches which allows to make the 3D Visualizations for the Cover on the webshop.

08. September

Today: ticking off things to do: Doing microscopy and taking photos for the project „Odeur Cuisine“ and the Image Video. Creating an animation video about bacteria movements. Preparing the photo session for “AphrodiTec”.

09. September

In the very early morning we had the chance to make the session in the photo studio. Afterwards we had to choose one from more than 150 portraits that becomes the cover picture of “AphrodiTec”. Meanwhile in the project room sodium alginate and calcium chloride were mixed to take some more microscopy photographies afterwards that will end up in the “Odeur Cuisine” Images. Defining the script of the image video. Now the filming must start.

10. September

The movie from the "sustainable luminous advertising" got finished and uploaded to Vimeo.

11.September

12.September

Week 6

13.September 14.September

The Product "AphrodiTec" gets visible - today we worked on a series of photos that tell stories around that product. Our project room became a photo studio and with some requisites and models we created the pictures atmosphere. Afterwards the first "pit crisps" grew in the armpit - product visualisations on the assembly line.

15. September

The final 3D visualisation of the bacteria stadion for the bacteria game were presented after long and hard architectual construction and many briefings. Ongoing we´re animating an real bacterial struggle in the middle of the stadion.

16. September

Florian made some visualisations in consultation with other team members. Andreas got an sea fish from Berlin to cultivate fluorescing e.coli bacteria.

17.September

18.September

19.September

Week 7

20.September

After 4 days waiting, Andrea`s sea fish was ready to extract the e.coli bacterias and Christian went on to prepare the 3D stadion for 3D printing. Florian continued with renderings for the the Cover on the webshop.

21.September

22.September

23.September

Christian and Mathias tried to make a 3D print for the bacteria game stadion. The others are writing on the product descriptions and finishing the texts about the projects. Till Monday we have to be ready for another review from the project team from Heidelberg.

24.September

First try Photosession for Babys Best ? child woke up.

25.September

Second Fotosession with a sleeping baby. Thats the cover of Babys Best Night Care.

26.September

Week 8

27.September

We went to Heidelberg to have a workshop, presented our new Web-page and discussed the technical instructions of our products. Making a new to do list as a roadmap to finish in time.

28.September

Ursula gave us some tips to refine our statements with the product visualisations and the bacteria-game group came together to assign new tasks.

Working on the Cover of BacteSafe - thanks to Waldberghaus for providing a picture as a base for the photomontage.

29.September

Christian and Florian have reformed the 3D visualisations with the others while we ordered people to photograph them for new visualisations.

30.September

Everyone is working on their own with photoshop and other programs, updating the webshop by putting video comments online or writing new comments for new users videos.

01.Oktober

Andreas went to Heidelberg again for 2 days to take pictures.

02.Oktober

We phoned some people to make a photoseason with them.

03.Oktober

Freetime for all...

Week 9

04.Oktober

More end-user friendly technical descriptions and visualizations were made.

05.Oktober

Mila was in the costume pool of the national theatre today. Amazing how many dresses they have... Preparing for the photosession on thursday. After we met in the room to discuss our course.

Week 10

11. October

After one weekend full of preparations, together with our visiting creative directors Laura and Philipp from Heidelberg, the long-awaited shooting for 'recobrain' could get started.

The production team already met early in the morning to rework their masterplan for the day: make photos and a short commercial expressing of their recobrain ideas! Shortly after the team declared to begin with the shooting at our workspace in weimar, because the pre-production became not over-detailed but enough to start right away.

After finishing the shooting of the first three locations: a toilet(sounds weird but totally makes sense), a craftsman-room and a outdoorshoot in the park; our frisky and amused team started to record the important injection main-scene in our little studio. Afterwards the shooting migrated to another location: a flat or more specific...the couch and the kitchen sink of it. To get ahead after a long break in the afternoon, everybody headed to the fitnessstudio - the official final location. Late at 11pm the last photo and film-take was made(hooray!), followed by an all night edit, photoshop, after effect session of our exhausted team memebers!

12. October

To gain some clothing inspiration for our jamboree team outfits and the following product photoshoots on wednesday afternoon, Mila and Vanessa grouped up on tuesday to examine the weimar atrium shopping-center and the theater costume pool (yeah again and again and angain!). Packed with a big bagful of photographic impressions on business outfits, cocktail dresses, bridal gowns and prices the two girls finaly returned to present their design-proposals via power-point on our early afternoon team meeting. After balancing our prospects with (more or less) the whole group, we regrettably decided not to show of in a scary artistic mirror ball suit while our presentation in boston.

Furthermore the design and structure of our igem-wiki got discussed with the group once more.

13. October

Vanessa and our photo-chief Henriette met in the studio to carry out their collaborative photoshoot for the products kokoromo and tweedlewheedle. After finishing the hair-do and make-up session with model Ms. Paula, a 50ies housewife setting was finally build up with the help of our faculties 'extra-light' cardboard chair and a wonderful moss-green cocktail dress sponsored by the costume pool. Everything went fine, even so the model had to show up a 'bored' attitude.

14. October

Everybody went into a huddle while working intensly on their own products and concepts for the webshop. There is only one day left till our deadline for the webshop on friday.

15. October

The deadline has come! All texts for the shop got finaly finished by everbody, but there are still pictures missing and a lot editing to do.

16. October

Bernd initiated a short discussion with all members of the weimar team via e-mail, about how to classify the different products in comprehensive devisions for the webshop to create a better overview for the users.