It’s 2071,
Are We Still Human?

The year is 2071: Boundaries between humans and nonhumans have blurred. How do these organisms look and function? How do they fit into new social, ecological, and political systems? We asked our BDC community members to share their visions of an interspecies future.

Hande Gungor, impossible humans, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.  

1.
No one imagined that the earth would make it this far––humans had already sought other planets. Then, something changed. They started to merge with nonhumans. Some humans wanted to amalgamate into organisms with leaves. Some with rocks, others with bugs or soil. They morphed into bio-humans for survival. —Hande Gungor




2.

In 2071 people affected by climate change and rising sea levels turn to the ocean to alter their lineages through animal apprenticeships and marine medicine. —Simone Johnson

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3.

With characteristics borrowed from different organisms, Interface proposes three masks that expand visual reality and extend the human experience. —Jose Chavarría Sancho



4.

Yuning Chan and Ji Soto, Homo Vegecus, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.  

Offering a remedy for severe food shortage in 2071, Homo Vegecus triggers a great cultural and biological shift in the food chain. The biodesigned breakthrough transforms human beings into autotrophic, photosynthesizing lifeforms. Farms gradually become obsolete and the concept of food no longer elicits material forms.

Simultaneously, a new type of employment emerges. To help plants absorb harmful CO2 in the atmosphere, humans start to use their own photosynthesis abilities to become “Carbon Sequestrators”. In 2071, every moment of daylight is treasured. —Yuning Chan and Ji Soto

5.

Kelly Xi, alien critiality, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.  

alien_criticality is a video work that drops you into a synthetic world. You navigate wind-chapped, ever-rarifying ground as a water caltrop, which has been imbued with abilities to catch light and sense aural magnetic fields.

“We make the world we possess. If we make our collective voices heard loud enough, it is inevitable that we move away from choices toxic to our survival,” an invisible force says. “You know nothing of this human concern. You are a de-pigmented seedpod.” —Kelly Xi

1
Hande Gungor is a multi-disciplinary audio-visual artist and interaction designer interested in extended reality and robotics. She is passionate about design fiction, speculative design, creativity in human-computer interaction design, and sonic interaction.

2
Simone Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and cultural worker based in NYC. She primarily makes work about water.

3
Jose Chavarría Sancho is a creative technologist living and working in San Jose, Costa Rica. He holds a master’s degree in Interaction Design from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering from the Costa Rican Institute of Technology. He currently works as a Creative Technologist and Resident Faculty at CIID.

4
Yuning Chan is an artist who explores the intersection of biology, design, and art. Inspired by eco-centrism and object-oriented ontology, she applies Bio-Human-Computer Interaction, experimental, and discursive design methods to explore relationships between human and nature.

Ji Soto is a Chilean biodesigner who uses biology to understand organic systems through architectural narrative. He is currently researching at The Bartlett School of Architecture and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

5
Kelly Xi is a writer and image-maker from Baotou, Inner Mongolia, the world’s largest supplier of rare-earth metals. She won the Barilla Prize for Regenerative Living Ecosystems for her BDC 2021 project Permapak.

Cite This Essay
“It’s 2071, Are We Still Human?” Biodesigned: Issue 8, 22 July, 2021. Accessed [month, day, year].