Creativity by copying: imitating life as a work of imagination

Engineering biological systems is easily interpretable as a process of mere and cold replication, or even distortion, of the natural domain, since it is often linked to industry and built on the Cartesian assumption of human rationality’s control over asubmissive nature. In this article, I approach living systems design from an alternative perspective, supporting its similarities with activities which are traditionally associated with creativity, like arts. I show that different kinds of creativity are deeply involved in copying, composing, and modifying life, focusing on two different levels: that of scientific modelling, recognisable by looking at biological circuits design, and that of actual building of new organisms of evolutionary interest, like the artificial bacterium JCVI-syn3.0.