The Nature of Biomimicry

Toward a Novel Technological Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID5338073
AuthorsMichael Fisch (0000-0001-5312-403X, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume42
Issue5
Pages795-821
Publication date2017-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243916689599
OpenAlexW2580953120
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited18

Biomimicry is a rising popular ecology movement and method that urges the derivation of innovative and environmentally sound design from organic systems. This essay explores the notion of nature in biomimicry as articulated by the movement's founder, Janine Benyus, and the nature of biomimicry as practiced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media ecologist Neri Oxman. Benyus's approach, I show, promotes biomimicry as a science of nature in which nature is treated as a source for innovative design that can be emulated in technological apparatus. Such an approach is problematic, I argue, for its valorization of organic form, which results in both a rigid system of ethics demanding absolute separation of nature and technology. By contrast, Oxman's work, I show, pursues biomimicry as a technology of nature. In so doing, I argue, it mobilizes a neomaterialist style of interaction with organic materials that ultimately enjoins a radically different way of thinking nature, technology, and technoethics

Art · Biomimetic materials · Biomimetics · Nanotechnology · Sociology · Visual arts · Art, Technology, and Culture · Computer Science · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Science Education and Perceptions · Artificial Intelligence