In 2004 I created this completely magical interactive experience called The Butterfly Garden for the Submerge exhibition. Its a memorable interactive illusion that puts digital butterflies all around you. Born in the palm of your hand, the interactive creatures flutter from flower to flower, until they eventually fly off into the ether.

People of all ages can interact with the artificially intelligent 3D butterflies by placing their hands above one of sixteen flowers, growing new and different butterflies in their palms. Entire groups of people can interact with the garden at any time. Just make sure you are gentle and calm though. Just like real butterflies, if you make sudden movements you may scare them away.

I have worked on several different versions of the beautiful butterfly garden.The very first was for the Submerge exhibition in Bristol, surrounding the main entrance with two sets of flowers planted on real grass turf. More recently the piece has been recreated for a Bridal show in Plymouth and a Literary festival in Cornwall.

How does it work?

Hidden into every sunflower is a tiny sensor that can detect the movement of your hand, and the distance and position of your hand. As you hold your hand out gently, the intelligent butterflies sense your position, and fly towards you. If you spend enough time playing, you can be surrounded by beautiful creatures.

How was this made?

I had been working with sensors and a computer control system that I wired and designed myself during my time on my degree. The sensors were really delicate and super-sensitive, so I had to find the perfect use for them. I wanted to create an interaction that was light and delicate and delightful. Luckily, Submerge approached me and asked me to create something along the theme of ‘organic/synthetic’ and the ideas just went together beautifully.

Thanks to Submerge

I had such a great time working with Cadbury World on projects like Chocolate Rain that I was thrilled when they, along with Newangle, asked me to work on a new interactive project for the historic Cadbury Collection.

The Story

Cadbury doesn’t just make great chocolate, Mr Cadbury also designed and built most of area surrounding his factory. He provided houses for the workers, schools, playing fields, sports clubs, and all sorts of other things to make life in Bournville a happy and healthy place to be. Cadbury world wanted to share the idea of building your own, virtual town, and see what it would be like in the future.

The Idea

I was tasked with programming a new interactive game that would take place on a giant interactive table. The game would be a lot like Sim City, where players would create housing, roads, schools, pubs, power plants, and pretty much everything else that you need to build a thriving city. But this game had a twist. Not only did you have to work against time and budget constraints, but you had to work with 3 other friends to help build the city. That means its a 4 player sim city! A very challenging thing to program indeed! But it was a lot of fun.

Each player takes a different side of the table, and must place different buildings down before the time, and the budget run out! Players must work together to make sure that everything is in the right place, as different players will be given different options, keeping the game fast paced and exciting.

Hidden Sensors

Underneath the table were hidden tiny electrostatic sensors that could detect players hands as they waved them over the table. This allowed for fast, large-scale gameplay. Simply by placing your hand on the giant map, a building would be placed under your fingertips.

The average game time lasts around 3 to 4 minutes, and once the buildings are placed in literately thousands of different configurations the camera “zooms out” and shows a realistic view of what that city would look like in 25 years time.

Will it be a thriving metropolis, or a dead end, crime ridden town? Only by working together will you get to find out.

I programmed all the software and the game mechanics, and Electrosonic provided the hardware. The concept was brought to life by Newangle, and Mark Dowsett created the various graphics and hundreds of icons that were used in the game.

I had the wonderful privelidge of being involved with an amazing art show at top London Gallery Tate Briatin, in a collaboartion with the amazing Martin Sextin. In March 2006 Martin Sexton presented New Gothic which combines music, digital art and performance. Featuring  ‘Heraldic Unicorn Lion Grace System’ by Truth Machine, described variously as ‘the high-concept band to end all high-concept bands’ and as a cult religious group by others.

The varying members of this arts collective reportedly all work to a set of instructions cut from the text of books that vary from hermetic works, theological mediations to pulp fiction, erotica and maps. Steve Severin conducts and provides the sonic soundscape.

Ride up with the Magical Lock-down Dark Pegasus: a Harley-Davidson XL53 custom motorcycle resplendent with blue-black Scottish crow wings and ‘pimped’ with a DVD monitor as tail-plate, that echoes TE Lawrence’s quote that “A motorcycle with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocations, to excess.”

Rattus Norvegicus

Meanwhile, I was working with Korash Sanjideh, Andy Early and Mike Cobb to create new visual experiences. We unleashed  chthonic forces with atechnological multimedia film noir Rattus Norvegicus as part of New Gothic at Tate Britain.

Rattus Norvegicus is a dark digital artwork shown for the first time at “Late at Tate Britain” as part of the “Gothic Nightmares” exhibition.