SymbiosisOÂ is a collection of programmable textile interfaces designed to visualize information and express emotions. It is an active, programmable secondary skin; a material to surround everyday objects in the interior, a slow display to present ambient content. SymbiosisO is based on a hybrid material composition and suggests novel human-computer interaction through the soft material. The members of the collection behave as organic displays; they react to human and environmental impulses responding with an animated change in color.Â
Our concept in first place was a tribute to the ultimate power of evolution, where not only the human civilization impacts the environment, but nature itself reacts and adapts to these changes. With SymbiosisO our objective is to develop organic, cutting edge objects that brings the natural rhythms back to the cityscape.Â
SymbiosisO: Voxel
in a collaboration with Alex Dodge, presented at tribeca ISSEY MIYAKE
Voxel is a large scale display system constructed of 64 hexagon shaped pixels (âvoxelsâ) made of embedded soft material. The arrangement of voxels follow a honeycomb structure and have two visual states: solid dark color (âoffâ) and a highlighted wire-frame of a cube (âonâ). The pixels can be activated by touch for an immediate feedback, or through a web based interface to create running animations.
Our project, SymboisisO, started in 2009 exploring interactive material composition. It has developed iteratively with the outcome of tangible organic displays. The first representative, SymbiosisW, senses human touch and â as a response â small cell-patterns start to grow out under the personâs hand. The second edition SymbiosisS welcomes the visitor to sit and rest on the soft-folded material with an active, slowly shifting pattern. When excited, this pattern starts forming in a playful, curious way around the place where the textile was touched. Once the disturbance is abated the pattern continues its peaceful expansion.Â
With Voxel our intention was to introduce a pixel-based interface instead of a predefined pattern arrangement. We would like to emphasize that none of the SymbiosisO representatives are privileged as they serve different purposes. Voxel is a tool, a flexible display that enables users to create their own image and animations, whereas SymboisisW/S expresses meaning through mimicking behavioural patterns of an organism.
Our further investigations focus on integrating Textile Displays into public spaces and special environments, to emphasize slow technology and to reduce digital noise.
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At the Tallinn Center of Biorobotics, besides I was working on my thesis, I started to help the textile artist Kärt Ojavee with prototyping and researching in the area of smart textiles. After her solo exhibition ("Undefined Useful Objects") we decided to continue working together. Soon after, the idea of an SymbiosisO has born and since then it has become one of our major research projects.
SymbiosisO is a collection of interactive design objects that combine smart textiles with soft electronics. The biologically inspired artifacts represent the symbiosis between a cyber organism and the human itself.
The fabricated hybrid material can be considered as an organic display; it reacts to a unique environmental stimuli and responds by notably changing its colour and pattern. Instead of pixels we operate with pictogram-like patches in the material, that can be memorized and connected to certain information. The appearing patterns at the moment are designed so that one can easily sense the quantitative difference depending on how many patches are triggered.
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