When you’re inside the Fablab of the Ars Electronica Center, you can see, through a glass wall, the Biolab next door where gene technology is demonstrated using synthetically cloned plants. A 3D printer that is used to produce replications through digital fabrication sits conveniently located nearby. Laterally connecting these two areas, we have the folding of proteins in nature meeting the folding of paper and synthetic fabrics in a field of research known as Oribotics. Working in the Futurelab, Matthew Gardiner has furthered his interest in an area where robotics, nature and origami intersect by creating interactive cyber-flowers called “oribots” that are made of a polyester fabric and contain proximity sensors that not only respond to, say, the presence of your hand, but are also networked to each other causing even small interactions to spread sympathetically amongst the other oribots. A blossom opens, causing 1,050 folds to actuate while electro-reflexes do the same to over 50,000 folds across the installation.
(thanks to Matthew Gardiner)