Microscope Reactive Digital Aquarium


[Amos] sent in the Living Interface. I call it a microscope reactive aquarium. A small light sensitive animal is inside a mini-aquarium on the scope plate. The wires are attached to lights at the edges to attract the animal. The position of the critter is reported via a digital aquarium. (looks like an empty aquarium combined with a projector. Aside from looking friggin cool, it has applications for measuring water toxicity by measuring the reaction time of the animal.

A while back, a friend of a friend supposedly used a USB microscopes to measure yeast activity in his beer brewing. If anyone runs across it, let me know.

14 thoughts on “Microscope Reactive Digital Aquarium

  1. That’s hot — but calling it an interface is a bit of a stretch. Give the bug an avatar on a quake server and represent other players as lights moving around the bug. Then you could give the bug a 5-s timeout when it gets fragged or turn on all the lights when it kills something — that would be an interface.

  2. “The topic of the project works between interaction design and the biology…the borders between technology and the animal world blurs.”

    More like another self-deluded technoartist blurring the borders between brilliance and bullcrap. Here’s my version, which I think would be far more entertaining:

    The system consists of Mr. Angeln, a large room, a camera in the ceiling, a motorized panel in each wall, and a computer. Mr. Angeln is locked in the room after being deprived of food and drink for three days. The panels are under computer control, and behind each is a tasty cupcake and a glass of cold milk. The computer opens one panel at a time. It also tracks Mr. Angeln’s position via the camera. Should he get too close to an open panel, that panel will be closed and another opened.

    After a period of time, Mr. Angeln’s cries of protest will generate an individual, unique music piece, composed by an animal. In addition, the level of his despair/starvation/dehydration could be measured by the speed of his movements.

    It’s not torture – it’s an “interface”!

  3. i agree with [darkcobra], while the resulting projection does look quite beautiful, its rather sad that they are generated by an animal that (is possibly?) being deprived of one of its primary energy sources — light. i definitely agree with the cupcake example! i doubt that in that situation he would then describe the device as an interface…

  4. Holy moly.

    You better pack it in right now if you’re gonna start squealing for microscopic animal rights!

    Your own body is destroying them left and right!

    I suggest you attach tiny protest signs to toothpicks and cover yourself with ’em asap so something gets done about it!

  5. Animal Rights?!!!!
    Start canvassing for the ban of bug zappers.
    Its inhuman to attract bugs using blue light and fry’em with electricity.
    Imagine somebody goin to a porno bar and getting zapped.
    This si not tortture ist jsut sceince.

Leave a Reply to JamesCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.