Sustrates Unbound

Substrates Unbound investigates the question of material agency in the context of Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI), where living and artificial substrates are materially integrated within biohybrid computational systems. Following the figure of the alchemical homunculus, it traces a genealogy of �substrate agency,� proposing that matter is not a passive support but an active participant in the production of technical functions. The inherited paradigms of �biomimesis� and �technomorphism� impose a hierarchy between technical and natural reality; yet, both fail to account for material agency, framing substrates as either immutable or indifferent. Such hierarchical frameworks are ill-suited to address the substrate-specific properties of SBI and related technologies. Focusing on the interface as a material site of co-construction, the essay reframes the relation between organisms and machines through the lens of agential materialism, recognizing substrates as active partners of invention rather than passive supports of universal functions.