Biomimics

Bi-o-mim-ic-ry
(From the Greek bios, life, and mimesis, imitation)
1. Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.
2. Nature as measure. Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the "rightness" of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.
3. Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.

The above is from the first plate page of the book Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine M. Benyus.

About a hundred years ago, the great Russian stage director Meyerhold was borrowing ideas from man-made industrialization and turning out a fabulous training technique for actors known as Biomechanics. Before, during, and after Meyerhold, Stanislavsky was discovering ideas rooted in nature, in the natural world and in human behavior, and making his own science and practical technique for actors. Perhaps his work could have been called "Biomimicry - a conscious emulation of life's genius. Innovation inspired by nature." Perhaps the credo could have been "there is more to discover than to invent." In any case, Stanislavsky as most who know him know, was way ahead of his time.

The three points listed in the above description of Biomimicry run exactly through Stanislavsky's work with actors. Point one, nature as model. Stanislavsky sought to find out what is the basic natural process that is "acting." In other words, what occurs that brings together fictional, made-up circumstance and living behavior in a way that becomes art, processed fully with human thought, sensation and feeling? The answer he called Affective Memory, and he described and articulated it and all its accompany details and qualities over a lifetime of work. This fundamental creative process he often said was akin to all other "magical" processes in nature, and he used many metaphors of such in his talks and work with actors. Point two, nature as measure. In the most simplistic sense, Stanislavsky knew that if an actor was violating what he called the creative laws of nature, the acting was "off." For Stanislavsky this measure of nature was his way of telling what kind of short and long term impact an actor's work would have on the spectators, how shallow or how deep it would it affect their sensibilities. Point three, nature as mentor. What could we learn from those characters in Uncle Vanya or The Three Sisters when they were presented to us not as metaphors or political operatives but as fully functioning living breathing human beings with all their interconnected and interdependent lives? An eco-system of a play? What would the actor-artist grasp in a visceral sense? What about the spectator? What is to be learned when you go "into the forest" or "into the play?"


Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

Ah, good ol' Stanislavsky! Gets better all the time!