Inorganisms was a week long workshop held for students at the University for Creative Arts in Epsom, England. The workshop is built around the idea of ecosystems and ecosystem interactions. Students learned basic interactive and wearable electronics techniques, based around the Arduino microcontroller and the Adafruit Flora sewable version of the Arduino. Using those skills, they were asked to design and build Inorganisms, self-contained inorganic organism-like creatures that could respond to stimuli from the outside world.
Together, we ended up creating 4 Inorganisms – Ten Draw, Eshu, Dexter, and Bzbl – each with its own personality and demeanor. Ten Draw is a twitchy fellow and doesn’t like it when you get too close. If it sees you, watch out! It will jump, turn and shout until you leave. Eshu is something if a parrot. It likes to immitate and will take any sounds you’re making our colours you’re wearing and make itself a copy. Dexter is looking for approval and a good time. High five it and you’ll get a song in return. Bzbl can be a little jumpy, but that’s to be expected for a creature that is always getting kicked around. Be gentle because if disturbed, he’ll start buzzing and vibrating about!
