Is this alive? Towards a vocabulary for understanding and communicating living material experiences

Abstract

Living materials are a nascent material class where living organisms are embedded and kept alive in the design outcome to achieve novel functionalities, expressions, and interactions. Experiential characterisation studies with potential end-users will provide insights for developing these novel materials for meaningful material applications. Nevertheless, the current literature lacks a vocabulary to communicate and discuss living materials in user studies. To bridge this gap, our paper presents the development of a "Living Materials Vocabulary" consisting of 45 descriptive items. Through a term frequency analysis of relevant literature and in-depth interviews with eight biodesigners, we identified a set of descriptions which we clustered under five themes: origin, making, agency and autonomy, temporality, and impact of living materials. We selected representative items from these themes to compile our final vocabulary. We discuss how our vocabulary can be operationalised in living material characterisation studies and further inspire future biodesign practice.