Abstract
In the face of ecological crises, collapsing infrastructures, and the residual toxicity of technoscientific progress, IMARA: Interstitial Machine for Aggregate Reparative Anatomies, models speculative life systems at the intersection of machine, body, and ecology. IMARA is a hacked bioprinter designed to fabricate anatomically adaptive, multi-speciated tissues in response to “cryodamage,” a fictional yet plausible condition in which human organs atrophy during long-term cryogenic suspension. Combining DIY biofabrication with feminist worldbuilding, IMARA challenges dominant biomedical aesthetics and repair logics by proposing alternative anatomical structures rooted in hybridity, relationality, and resilience. This presentation reflects on IMARA not only as a handbuilt machine, but as a methodology: a technofeminist restor(y)ing of life-making, built through iterative design, material engagement, and speculative fiction. It engages with questions of who gets to define viability, care, and survival in posthuman futures. By foregrounding situated biotechnological practices—bioinks made from kitchen-safe ingredients, algorithms rigged toward subversive anatomies, and bodily imaginaries shaped by both grief and desire—IMARA serves as a working prototype for modeling ecologically entangled, socially just biofutures.
Presenters
WhiteFeather HunterStudent, SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
New Media, Technology and the Arts
KEYWORDS
Feminist Technoscience, Biofabrication, Speculative Design, Posthuman Bodies, DIY Biotechnology, Materiality
