B. Greiner
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Proposal: Vivarium Circuit
Vivarium Circuit is an installation currently in development staging a networked ecology of generative
projection, hybrid flora, small robots, synthesized sound, and electronic circuitry creating a digital
ecosystem which mirrors organic processes.
Viewers will encounter a five-foot cubed ‘vivarium’ for digital entities and environmental systems,
through a screen of sheer illuminescent silk. Inside the cube, digital entities consisting of small robots
and hybrid flora react to an environment consisting of generative projections, sound, and light creating
causal feedback loops.
The flora is composed of natural branches, augmented and extended with digitally fabricated
appendages and lighting, creating a continuum between organic matter and artificial construction.
Elements communicate through an IOT-based hub, enabling both autonomous behaviors and real-time
interaction across the environment.
Environmental electronic sound and music will be generated through a Max/MSP patch or through
modular synthesis utilizing a Eurorack synthesizer. The generative score evokes electronic dance music
actively coupled to the ecosystem unfolding within the cube. The sound and music will be able to be
heard through audio transducers and small speakers placed throughout the enclosure.
Elements move between states of machinic looping and autonomous behavior, embodying agency,
identity, and systemic belonging. Each entity has different states which are activated in response to
the environment and other entities in the viviarium. Sensing and state activation of the entities take
place through various analog and digital apparatuses. Vectors of communication include an IOT based
wireless communication and a variety of environmental sensors that respond to environmental aspects
including light ,sound, motion, and air composition.
Computationally generated forms resembling leaf shadows, mold growth, and other transitional
states are projected across silk fabric that screens the enclosure, evoking biological processes while
remaining distinctly artificial.
Industrial materials are freed from their normal productive context and reborn as part of an organic-
machine ecology.
Partly between natural history diorama and living entity, Vivarium Circuit reminds viewers of seasonal,
technological, and living cycles that they are implicated in yet often deny. By anthropomorphizing
robotic gestures and presenting the system at an accessible human scale, the installation makes visible
the shared metabolism of work, life, and environment.