Reconfiguring Nature Through Syntheses :<br />From Plastics to Biomimetics

Nature and artifact are polysemic, over-determined notions whose definitions vary according to the standpoint. Metals are the epitome of the artefactual with regard to structure (because nature never use metals as structural materials) whereas plastics epitomize the artificial with regard to the process of synthesis and their cultural meaning. Technology and cultural history are not the only frames of reference. A patent attorney would bring a quite different perspective on the natural and the artificial. Legal rules and norms edicted for tax purposes or for patents by the federal state or by international trade organizations specify which compound manufactured in laboratory conditions may be considered as natural. Ironically, the notion of "natural" is constructed by convention, and by culture together. Beyond the influence of cultural factors and social conventions, could it be argued that the concepts of nature and artifice are continuously reconfigured by their mutual relation? The question is twofold : to what extent the views of nature determine the manufacture of artifacts. Symmetrically is there a feed-back of the design and production of artifacts on the views of nature? In this paper I discuss those questions through three different practices of synthesis developed in the twentieth century