Biodesign has grown significantly in the last decade as an approach focused on designing with biological materials, processes, and systems. The inherent transdisciplinarity of biodesign enables it to cut across multiple fields. In this work, we look at how biodesign has recently been applied within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), a disciplinary field that focuses on the design, development, and study of interactive technologies. Subsequently, Biological-HCI (Bio-HCI) has emerged as a rapidly growing and evolving area of research at the intersection of biodesign and HCI. To highlight the nascence of Bio-HCI, we examine three of our own Bio-HCI projects—SCOBY Breastplate, B10-PR1NT, and μMe—as case studies that exemplify how biodesign is being explored through specific, situated practices with a variety of interactive technologies. Through these cases, we identify potential themes and opportunities for Bio-HCI as it continues to push current understandings of computational interaction and promote more sustainable technological futures.

Dance artists often suggest that working with interactive technology can produce the experience of bi-directionality in which the performer is perceptually aware of the manner in which movement directly produces changes in the performance environment. In addition, it is suggested that the performer can also become aware of the manner in which the technologies affect the dancer's performance. Drawing on phenomenology, some have argued that experiences of bi-directionality call for a reconsideration of the manner in which the moving body interacts with technological devices. I draw on Albert Borgmann's philosophy of technology to examine this approach and argue that it overlooks important issues concerning contextuality and the nature of the technological devices that are utilized in interactive performance.