樹懶效應：NO.1, 腋下的雨林
Sloth Effect: NO. 1, The Rainforest of Axilla
宮保睿 Paul Gong
Paul Gong
Paul Gong (TW/US), born in 1988. He holds a BA in Industrial Design from the Chang Gung University in Taipei, Taiwan, and an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London, United Kingdom. He sees design is a research method and thinking tool to explore different possibilities, to criticise the past and the present, and to speculate the future. Design should stimulate debate, imagination, and reflection for people. It is also interesting for him to explore the aesthetics of the representation for possible futures. His project research focus is speculative design and topics related to biotechnology. His work has been exhibited at MAS, Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp, Taiwan Design Museum, Taipei, USC 5D Institute in Los Angeles, Future Gallery in Palo Alto, London, and Guangzhou. He currently works as an independent designer and artist of Ouroboros - Organic Organism of O (Artist Collective), and a part-time tutor of the Department of Industrial Design, Media and Visual Communication Design at Chang Gung University.
宮保睿
宮保睿，1988 年生於美國，擁有長庚大學工業設計系產品組學士，英國皇家藝術學院 (RCA) 設計互動系 (Design Interactions) 碩士。認為設計是⼀種研究方法與思考工具，探索各種可能性，且批判過去與現在，推想未來。設計應該讓人可以刺激討論、想像與反思，也致力於探索如何呈現可能未來的美學。創作與研究主要專注於思辨設計 (Speculative Design) 與生物科技相關主題。作品展覽於安特衛普的 MAS 博物館、台北的台灣設計館、洛杉磯的南加州大學 5D 學院、帕羅奧圖的未來美術館，以及英國倫敦、中國廣州等地。目前為創作團體㗊機體的獨立設計師與藝術家，長庚大學工業設計系媒體與傳達設計組的兼任講師。
“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.”
- Edward O. Wilson, Father of Biodiversity.
Scientists today start looking for new medicines in the highly biodiverse rainforest, where they have found several types of fungus in sloth hair. Sloth fur has symbiotic relationship with green algae and has proved to be the potential resources for treating and fighting certain diseases, cancer and bacterial infections.
Inspired by the sloth fur, I am curious about humans axillary hair, which seems to have a similar state of the rainforest, and wondering if there is also a certain biodiversity exists in armpit hair?
Through imagining a fictional community that embraces self-experimentation and biotechnology in the near future, we foresee how it will evolve and develop over time, and how it will try to create different "relationships" at different stages with a series of special behaviors and experiments to increase the biodiversity of axillary hair.
This project attempts to explore and arouse the public discussion of the biodiversity of human from the perspective of axillary hair, and the exploration of the relationship between nature and unnature through the “prospect;” as well as the social, cultural, aesthetic, and gender implications of axillary hair in contemporary society.
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Project concept and design by Paul Gong
Project photography by Andrew Kan
Costume Design by Cevo Yang
Special Makeup Artist by Zoe SFX makeup
Graphic design by Rika Su
Models by Ting-Ting Chou, Patrice Hsu, Yingying(cat)
Bio Apartment Vol.3 - Succession exhibition photography by Cheng-Te Chiao
Special Thanks to: √radicalsign, Pei-Ying Ling, Kuang-Yi Ku, Theresa Tsun-Hui Tsao, Shih-Yen Lo, Rachel Jui-Chi Chang, Pattern Technology Co., LTD, Play Design Hotel.
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樹懶效應：NO.1, 腋下的雨林
“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.”
- Edward O. Wilson, Father of Biodiversity.
現今科學家們開始進入充滿生物多樣性的大自然雨林裡尋找新藥物。在雨林中，科學家們在擁有特別共生行為的樹懶毛髮裡找到數種真菌類，是有潛力地去治療與抵禦某些疾病、癌症與細菌感染成為新藥物的資源。 啟發於樹懶，反觀人類的腋毛似乎有著類似雨林的環境狀態，那腋毛是不是也有可能存在著某種生物多樣性？ 透過想像一個擁抱自我實驗與生物科技的虛擬社群在可能的未來裡，經由時間的演變與發展，他們嘗試用以一系列不同的行為與實驗在不同階段來創造不同的「關係」來增加腋毛的生物多樣性。