(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Algaemy – Crafting our Future Food by Blond & Bieber

As our more loyal readers will be aware, for us the future is analogue.

As ever more aspects of our daily routine are taken over by digital technology, the more time we have to concentrate on the things that matter.

And they are all analogue.

All.

Parallel, open design and open processes will become more important as we all lose the need to be part of a stylised mass and finally comprehend that contemporary industrial production and distribution networks are no longer ecologically or socially justifiable.

On the surface the project Algaemy- Crafting our Future Food by Berlin based design studio Blond & Bieber has little to do with our future utopia.

However, while currently presented as textile printing, the heart of the project is the cultivation, harvesting and utilisation of microalgae as a dye.

One the one hand, a dye is a dye and can be used for purposes other than textile printing. And, and assuming Blond & Bieber aka Essi Johanna Glomb and Rasa Weber want to share the secrets of their Algaemy, dye extraction from microalgae is a process that can be carried out locally, thus allowing global access to a relatively cheap, simple, reliable and for all sustainably renewable source of dyes.

We know, we know, other sources of dyes are available and have been successfully used and applied for thousands of years. Are however invariably either regionally or seasonally restricted in their availability. Algae offers alternatives. A post-industrial response to the limitations of traditional technologies. As it were.

And aside from all such considerations. We do very much like the textile designs Blond & Bieber produce.