Bacteria Make Living

Speculative project

Collaborator/consultant

NA

Year

2022

People's attitudes to bacteria have tended to be negative over the years. Some bacteria can lead to illness; however, not all are harmful. Contrarily, many have benefits to our health. All these behaviours can contribute to the decline of human microbiome diversity over generations, potentially leading to an increased prevalence of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Using speculative design concepts to generate a future that humanity with chronic over-cleaning causes the insufficient of normal flora in the human body. This project challenged people’s idea of bacteria and stimulated viewers to think about the relationship between humans and bacteria and understand how important these invisible creatures are to us. What if new kinds of infectious diseases keep appearing? Which attitude should we have when facing the condition? Where is the line between clean and dirty?

It is time for us to rethink the relationship between us and the bacteria.

People living in the near future rely on artificial attachment to bring the bacteria back into their bodies. It's almost impossible for people to naturally maintain an adequate amount and variety of bacteria in their bodies. In this case, a biotechnology company steps in. Bacteria Make Living, a company that provides a complete service to restore the harmony between humans and bacteria in a safe way, has become a choice for people.

"It's really easy to forget that we live in a microbial world," says Bohach. "They're emperors of our planet."

In the long-term evolutionary process with the host, the microbiota forms a dynamic equilibrium of exchanging ecosystem with the host called normal flora. It is a truth that bacteria play an essential role in our wellness. Numerous medical research mentioned that being too clean is not good for humans.In 1989, the British epidemiologist David Strachan was the first to suggest that the exposure to infections during childhood would provide a good defence against allergies in later life. It's an idea known as 'Hygiene Hypothesis'. Our bodies, says Dorothy Matthews, biologist at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, may overreact to beneficial microbes, because our immune systems have forgotten how to live with them.

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