Netta Ofer
I am a design researcher exploring more-than-human design perspectives, mostly through the material and ethical qualities of living organisms. Through autobiographic design methods, bodily and movement practices, microscopy, digital fabrication, and digital art, I aim to expose entangled relations with nonhumans, human-centered assumptions, and fabulate and enact different ones. My background is in media studies, human-computer interaction (HCI), and interaction design from the Media Innovation Lab (milab) at Reichman University. I have published and demoed my research at ACM CHI, ACM DIS, and ACM IDC; and exhibited work at The Museum of Boulder and The Arvada Center. I am a PhD candidate at The ATLAS Institute at University of Colorado Boulder, co-advised by Joel Swanson and Laura Devendorf.
 
Email: netta.ofer [at] colorado.edu
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Artist Statement
I investigate the hierarchical nature of human-nonhuman relationships, specifically living organisms. I use design research, embodied practices, and visual art for exposing anthropocentric contact zones and challenging narrow perspectives. From examining the surveillance in microscopic observation to designing embodied interactions with nonhuman organisms, I explore how human exceptionalism shapes the links between bodies and how we perceive them. My practice often relies on growing and tending to nonhuman organisms for surfacing points of connection and tension between our humanism, ourselves, and other agentic forces. These practices reveal what is in-becoming, overlooked, and uncertain in a world that is polarized and forced into categories.

Biological Co-choreography



A collaborative choreography process with slime mold.
Biological Co-choreography is a unique dance score and performance inspired by what looked like slime mold “moving” throughout its environment in timelapse videos of slime mold’s foraging behavior. I designed and fabricated a transparent acrylic stage-like petri dish that could hold agar substrate at its base and could be covered in order to protect the slime mold growing inside. Over the course of 5 days, the slime mold and I took turns and together created the Biological Co-choreography. I began by placing a trail of oats on top of the agar substrate in the stage dish as well as inoculated the stage dish with the slime mold culture. Now it was the slime mold’s "turn". 






After 24 hours, I was surprised to discover that the slime mold did not grow towards the oat that was closest to the inoculation point. It did not move like I thought it would. Instead, the slime mold was making its way towards the second oat closest to it. This was when I realized that what was emerging was a collaboative choreography between the slime mold and myself. We both took actions and made decisions that led to the composition created.  A "back and forth" motion between the slime mold and I went on for several days. I laid down oats, curious to see if the slime mold would take the oats as a scafold for its pathway, and the slime mold grew in its own pathway, only sometimes crossing over and conforming to the pathway I initiated.