Syracuse University

Telenu Society: An Ancient Discovery

finalist project

Carolyn Fernandes, Collin Wong, Kenji Frazier, Sasha Degtiareva

Telenu is a speculative project exploring an ancient, environmentally harmonious society in Venezuela’s Tepui Highlands. This imagined civilization integrated funerary rituals, architecture, and data storage into biological and geological cycles. Bodies were transformed into nacreous “eggs” encoded with DNA-transcribed memories, which dissolved back into the landscape. By combining biomaterials, indigenous mythologies, and advanced science, it challenges current ideas about death, permanence, and ecological legacy. Through visuals, storytelling, and speculative artifacts, Telenu proposes an alternative societal model where life and death are gracefully woven into Earth’s natural metabolism, offering a vision of seamless coexistence with the environment.

Yves A. Michel teaches industrial and interaction design at Syracuse University’s School of Design. His focus is on speculative design, sustainable design, and biodesign. With two decades of experience, he’s worked as a conceptual industrial designer across the U.S. and Canada for companies like Safety 1st, Reebok, Essential Design, Adidas, CCM Hockey, BRP, Lime Design, and MO Workshop. In 2020, he launched his studio Yami Space. In 2015, he completed his master’s at Université de Montréal with his thesis, Biomimicry and Innovation in Sustainable Design, investigating how nature-inspired design leads to innovation. Now, through the Symbiosis Project—Yami Space’s research branch—he explores the intersection of design, biology, and technology, using speculative design as a research method to create novel near and far future biodesign solutions.