Tomeduchi

Interactive installation · Inverted biology

Role: Interaction Designer & Creative Technologist
Year: 2024
FESTIVAL: Off Llum 24
Discipline: Tech Lab

THE WORK

Dystopian Adaptation & "8-bit" graphics

Tomeduchi is an immersive material and lighting installation that reflects on the destruction of marine territories by reimagining jellyfish as land-dwelling cyborgs. In a dystopian reality where oceans have dried out, these creatures have morphed into rigid, robotic entities, their mass is now composed of wiring, electronics, and structural frameworks to maintain their shape on dry land. The physical installation captures the stillness and serenity characteristic of the seabed, exploring how these entities alter light and suspend space. Modular structures engineered from metal and netting are suspended directly from the ceiling, allowing the public to walk freely underneath and between the sculptures to submerge themselves within a dynamic, sensory environment.

Exposed Infrastructure & Adaptive Graphics

Exposed electronics are a deliberate design choice: bundles of wire, custom-programmed LED arrays, boards, and drivers remain fully legible as material fact—not hidden behind shells—so the creatures read as engineered survival rather than organic illusion. Dropping down from these robotic bells are layered strips of multi-textured, highly reflective fabrics and textiles that alter external light sources to project a shifting, liquid-like effect across the entire surrounding architectural space.

The work utilizes a nostalgic '8-bit' graphic language on the faces and readouts that borrows from early game interfaces. These blocky pixels and limited palettes signal 'toy' while the heavy, suspended body says 'machine,' holding tenderness and threat in the same frame.

As the embedded LED arrays fire in tight synchronization with the custom interaction logic, the installation invites the audience to explore the boundaries between nature, technology, and structural art.