Nano Supermarket

The NANO supermarket expo opens its doors this autumn 2010, which shows speculative nano product ideas expected to hit the shelves between today and 2020. A jury will select a range of products to be exhibited in the NANO supermarket and award one price of 2500 euro.

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of science that deals with the manipulation of structures on an atomic and molecular scale – the size of one billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology radically intervene with our sense of what is natural. It may realize the dreams people have for themselves and significantly improve our lives, but may also have its downsides: We might as well be designing the penicillin as the asbestos of the future.

This autumn 2010 the Next Nature NANO Supermarket will be presented: a physical supermarket featuring debate–provoking visions on possible nanotech products expected to hit the shelves between today and 2020. We chose to build a supermarket rather than a traditional exhibition, because the supermarket is a both futuristic and ordinary place. It is a reality machine where new habits, lifestyles and technologies become part over everyday life. Hence, we think it is the designated location to envision our nanotech future.

Self–cleaning windows, contact lenses with a build-in display, smart medicines, cyborg insects, nano-particle tagging spray that may identify your possessions when stolen, breathing textiles, tooth phones, organic jewelry, implantable microprocessors and whatever you may think of.

Spray On Liquid Glass
Is transparent, non-toxic, and used to protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. Is this the end of cleaning as we know it?

Pharmaceutical 65+ Sushi
How to improve the quality of life for the elderly, who are notorious for their enormous daily medicine intake? Perhaps can Pharmaceutical Sushi be an answer. Why take pills if you can pick the last Vitamine ABC Sashimi with your chopsticks?

Self-Healing Surfaces
What if a scratch on your car door could heal itself, just like the human skin does? Engineers are working on a way to transfer the self-healing ability of the skin to surfaces and materials.

Nano Tattoo to monitor Diabetes
Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories have developed a special injectable ink with nano-particles. This ink eventually could replace painful blood glucose tests which diabetics need to do on a regular basis.

Food Printer
Cooking becomes like playing with LEGO and your friends can sent their recipes directly to your printer. Tasty!?

Nanoparticles in Sunscreen Damage Microbes
Nanoparticles in sunscreens, cosmetics and hundreds of other consumer products may pose risks to the environment by damaging beneficial microbes. Oops! Are we designing the penicillin as the asbestos of the 21st century?

Excuse me, Is Your Tooth Ringing?
The ‘tooth phone’ consists of a tiny vibrator and a radio wave receiver implanted into a tooth during routine dental surgery. Sound is transferred to the inner ear by bone resonance, meaning information can be received anywhere and at any time – and nobody else can listen in.

Blood Cells 2.0
Replacing 10% of your original blood cells with blood cells 2.0 should allow you to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or allows you to stay under water for hours.

The Supermarket: Our Next Savanna
If only the supermarket wasn’t such a mundane part of our life, we would realize how exceptional this environment really is: The supermarket is our next savanna.

There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom
December 29th 1959, physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture in which he layed out the new era of what we nowadays call nanotechnology. The key question in Feynman’s talk was: What would happen if we could arrange the atoms – one by one, any way we want them?

Nanotechnology Crashcourse
And here is one for the beginners. This mashup video project integrates various video clips that ask: What is nanotechnology?

Jury Members

• Bas Haring – Philosopher, Writer, Professor Leiden Universtity
• Bert Meijer – Distinguished University Professor in the Molecular Sciences, TU/e
• Dave Blank – Professor Inorganic Materials Science, TU Twente
• Karin Spaink – Writer, columnist, activist
• Lucien Hanssen – Academic Entrepreneur, Deining
• René Janssen – Professor in physical organic chemistry, TU/e
• Rinie van Est – Technology Assessor, Rathenau Institute
• Ronald van Tienhoven – Artist, Social Cultural Expert
• Taco Stolk – Artist, Founder department of Genetic Design

Organizing Team

• Marieke Kruithof
• Lucas Asselbergs
• Marco Rozendaal
• Koert van Mensvoort

Exhibition Design: Maze de Boer

Graphic Design: Hendrik-Jan Grievink

Nano Supermarket Concept

• Koert van Mensvoort
• Marco Rozendaal

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• TU/e Industrial Design
• TU/e Studium Generale
• Next Nature Foundation

Via: NextNature.net