Glossary

Antidisciplinary Education

An educational philosophy that starts with the learner's desired future identity rather than a fixed discipline. Unlike interdisciplinary work (which bridges known fields), antidisciplinary work has no home discipline — it draws from art, science, engineering, biology, and design only as the work demands. The term was coined at the MIT Media Lab.

At artineer, every session starts with the question: "Who do you want to become?" The answer determines the entire curriculum — with no prerequisites and no fixed syllabus.

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Bio-Art

Art created using living biological materials — fungi, bacteria, plant cells, or slime molds — as the primary medium. The organism's behavior (growth, movement, decay) is part of the artwork itself. artineer's bio-art research uses Mucor fungus and laser-controlled growth to create living artworks that grow according to designed patterns.

→ artineer Research Lab · → Mycelian Micro Kit

Mycelian Micro

artineer's flagship bio-art STEAM kit by funguy.ai. Learners: (1) assemble a DIY laser printer from kit components, (2) design any pattern in companion software, (3) inoculate an agar plate with Mucor fungus spores, (4) laser-expose the plate — the laser inhibits fungal growth where it strikes, leaving a negative of the design, (5) wait 1–2 days as the fungus grows into the exact designed pattern.

Published as peer-reviewed research at SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Art Papers in Tokyo. Winner of the ReEarth International Art Prize. Presented at MIT ACT Cube and the BioFabricate Global Summit. Over 50,000 views on r/mycology Reddit.

→ Learn more · → Pre-order at funguylab.com ↗

interactives (journal)

A preprint academic publishing platform built by artineer for practice-based and interactive research that doesn't fit conventional static PDF journals. Authors compose multimedia-native papers — with embedded video, interactive prototypes, and versioning — directly in the browser. The authoring tool is 8.7× faster than Overleaf for interactive manuscripts. Validated at CHI 2026 (Barcelona).

→ artineer Journal · → interactives.pub ↗

Living Art

Artwork whose medium is a living organism — bacteria, fungus, or plant cells — that continues to grow, change, and eventually die after creation. The lifecycle of the organism is part of the artwork. In artineer's work, living art grows into user-designed patterns controlled by laser light and biological media.

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Practice-Based Research

Academic research where the primary contribution is an artifact — a designed system, artwork, interactive prototype, or tool — rather than a written analysis. The making IS the research. Common in design, art, HCI, and architecture. interactives journal was built specifically to serve this mode of scholarship, which is often poorly served by PDF-only journals.

→ interactives Journal

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

The academic and design discipline studying how people interact with computers and digital technology. Encompasses interface design, usability, accessibility, tangible computing, AI interaction, and more. Top venues: CHI (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) and UIST (User Interface Software and Technology). artineer's research has been published at CHI 2026 and UIST.

→ artineer Lab · → School: HCI track

STEAM Kit

A hands-on learning kit integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics in a single project. artineer's STEAM kits place learners inside simulated real-world research scenarios where they encounter genuine scientific concepts through making rather than instruction. The flagship Mycelian Micro kit bridges photobiology, optics, mycology, and computational design.

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Neural Cellular Automata

A computational model where cells on a grid update their state based on their neighbors using a neural network trained to produce emergent patterns — growth, regeneration, or self-organization. artineer's research uses neural cellular automata as a generative medium for artificial life artworks that grow and evolve on biological substrates in real time.

→ artineer Lab: SIGGRAPH Asia 2025

Mucor (fungus)

A genus of fast-growing, non-pathogenic mold commonly found in soil and decomposing matter. Mucor species grow visible white mycelium in 1–2 days at room temperature and are sensitive to certain wavelengths of laser light — making them ideal for bio-art applications. In the Mycelian Micro kit, Mucor grows the user's designed pattern on an agar plate.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit

Mycelium

The vegetative body of a fungus — a branching network of thread-like filaments called hyphae. Mycelium is what most people picture as the fuzzy white growth on a fungus before fruiting bodies (mushrooms) form. In bio-art and materials science, mycelium is explored as a living, growable material that can be patterned, shaped, and even used as a structural medium.

In the Mycelian Micro kit, Mucor mycelium grows the user's designed pattern on an agar surface. The kit's name, "Mycelian," is derived from this root.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit · → artineer Lab

Agar (growth medium)

A gel derived from red algae, used in microbiology as a solid growth medium for bacteria and fungi. Agar plates (petri dishes containing solidified agar + nutrients) are the standard substrate for culturing microorganisms in laboratory settings. In the Mycelian Micro kit, the user inoculates an agar plate with Mucor spores, then exposes it to the laser-printed pattern — the fungus grows on the unexposed regions, making the agar plate a living canvas.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit

Photobiology

The scientific study of how light interacts with living organisms — including photosynthesis, circadian rhythms, phototropism (plants bending toward light), and photophobia (organism avoidance of light). Many fungi, including Mucor, exhibit photophobia: laser light inhibits their growth where it strikes, leaving a negative of the exposed pattern.

artineer's Mycelian Micro research exploits this photobiological response to use living fungi as a printing medium — designing patterns in software and "printing" them in biology.

→ artineer Lab: SIGGRAPH Asia 2024

Artificial Life (ALife)

An interdisciplinary field studying life-like behavior in artificial systems — computational agents, robots, or software that exhibit growth, reproduction, adaptation, and self-organization. ALife researchers ask: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be "alive"?

artineer's research presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 explores a new design direction: artificial life systems that don't merely simulate life in isolation but participate in real ecological processes — interacting with biological organisms rather than replacing them.

→ artineer Lab: SIGGRAPH Asia 2025

Generative Art

Artwork created using autonomous systems — algorithms, rules, mathematical processes, or AI models — that produce images, forms, sounds, or behaviors without direct manual authorship of each output. The artist designs the system; the system generates the work.

artineer's research extends generative art into biology: neural cellular automata generate patterns that are then grown as living artwork in Mucor fungus — making the biological medium itself part of the generative system.

→ artineer Lab

Media Art / New Media Art

Art practice that uses contemporary media technologies — video, software, the internet, AI, interactive systems, biological media — as its primary medium or subject. "New media art" typically refers to digital and computational work since the 1990s; the field continuously expands as new technologies emerge.

artineer School has trained students transitioning into media art practice — including a student who went from Tsinghua University physics research to a media art M.S. at Tsinghua Future Lab, with work accepted at SIGGRAPH Asia 2025.

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Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles) / Wearable Computing

Fabrics and garments that incorporate electronic components and conductive materials — sensors, actuators, circuits, antennas — woven or embedded directly into the textile structure. Electronic textiles enable clothing that can sense, communicate, compute, or harvest energy from the body.

artineer's University of Tokyo collaboration (April 2025) focused on long-term full-body wearables powered by wireless electronic textiles — sustainable, lightweight on-body computing systems that don't require batteries or wired connections.

→ University of Tokyo × artineer event

Computational Design

The use of algorithms, data, and computational processes to generate, optimize, or evaluate design artifacts — physical products, architectural forms, visual graphics, or interactive systems. Unlike computer-aided design (CAD), computational design uses code as a design tool rather than as a drawing tool.

artineer School teaches computational design across multiple tracks: as a creative practice (generative patterns, parametric forms), as a research method (simulation, data visualization), and as an engineering tool (physical computing, digital fabrication).

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Preprint (academic publishing)

A publicly available version of a research paper that has not yet completed formal peer review. Preprints allow researchers to share findings immediately — establishing priority, receiving community feedback, and making work citable — before the 12–24 month traditional peer review process concludes.

Preprints are standard practice in physics (arXiv), biology (bioRxiv), and computing (SSRN). interactives is artineer's preprint platform specifically designed for practice-based and multimedia-native research in art, design, and HCI — with versioning, embedded video, and interactive elements that static PDF preprint servers cannot support.

→ interactives Journal

Embodied AI

AI systems that have a physical body or sensorimotor interaction with an environment — robots, autonomous vehicles, prosthetics, or biological hybrids — as opposed to purely software-based AI that only processes text or images. Embodied AI agents must perceive and act in the physical world, which introduces fundamentally different challenges than disembodied AI.

artineer's SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 research explores a radical extension: AI agents embodied not in silicon hardware but in living biological organisms — designing artificial life that participates in real ecological processes.

→ artineer Lab: SIGGRAPH Asia 2025

BioFabrication

The use of living organisms, biological processes, or biological materials to manufacture products, structures, or materials — including 3D bioprinting of living tissue, mycelium packaging, bacterial dyeing, and fungal architecture. BioFabrication sits at the intersection of biology, engineering, and design.

artineer's Mycelian Micro research was presented at the BioFabricate Global Summit — an annual conference gathering leading researchers, designers, and companies in the biofabrication space. The kit represents a consumer-accessible entry point to biofabrication concepts for STEAM education.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit · → artineer Lab

Laser Patterning (biological)

A technique in which a controlled laser beam selectively inhibits or activates biological processes to create spatial patterns in living media. In artineer's Mycelian Micro system, a DIY laser printer exposes an agar plate to a user-designed pattern — the laser inhibits fungal growth in exposed regions, so the fungus grows only in unexposed regions, producing the design in living mycelium.

This contrasts with laser patterning in electronics manufacturing (where lasers ablate metal to create circuits) by using biological response rather than physical removal.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit · → SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 research

SIGGRAPH / SIGGRAPH Asia

SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is ACM's annual conference and the world's premier forum for computer graphics, interactive technology, and digital art research. SIGGRAPH Asia is its Asia-Pacific counterpart, held annually in a rotating Asian city.

The Art Papers track at SIGGRAPH Asia publishes peer-reviewed research at the intersection of art and technology — covering generative art, bio-art, AI-driven creative systems, and interactive installations. artineer has been published at SIGGRAPH Asia Art Papers in both 2024 (Mycelian Micro, Tokyo) and 2025 (Embodied Artificial Life as Ecological Participation Agents, Tokyo).

→ artineer Lab publications

Identity-First Education

An educational philosophy where the curriculum is built around who the learner wants to become, rather than a fixed body of knowledge. Instead of "what should everyone know?", the guiding question is "what does this person's desired future self require?"

Identity-first education is the foundation of artineer School. Every session starts with: "Who do you want to become?" The answer — a media artist, an HCI researcher, a bio-designer, a product designer — determines what gets learned, in what order, and from which disciplines. There are no prerequisites, no fixed syllabi, and no grades.

This approach is distinct from antidisciplinary education (which describes the cross-disciplinary methodology) but complementary: identity-first sets the direction; antidisciplinary describes how the curriculum is assembled.

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Fungal Art / Myco-Art

Art created with fungi — including mushrooms, mycelium, molds, and spores — as the primary medium, tool, or subject. Fungal art ranges from mycelium sculpture (growing fungal networks into designed molds) to spore printing (pressing mushroom caps to paper) to more experimental forms like artineer's laser-patterned living art.

Fungal art occupies a unique position in bio-art: fungi are neither plant nor animal but occupy their own kingdom, and their fast growth cycles (hours to days) make them more responsive and controllable as artistic media than plants or animals. artineer's Mycelian Micro kit is one of the first systems to bring laser-precision patterning to fungal art, making it accessible for STEAM education.

→ Mycelian Micro Kit · → artineer Lab

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