"Digital Terrarium" is an experimental project exploring the visualization of local data and ecosystem evolution. It is an exploration of holographic display and sensor-driven interaction, combining the Pepper's Ghost illusion with real-time environmental monitoring. This technique that uses a fishbowl and angled plexiglass to create the illusion of holographic digital creatures cohabiting with the real-world terrarium-- a setup that creates a seamless augmented reality (AR) experience, where both physical and digital life forms exist in the same space.
A fishbowl, containing a "sensing" jellyfish, is a hologram that reacts to local sensor data (lux, noise, temperature, humidity, pressure). For example, tapping on the bowl leads to erratic movements from the jellyfish, and shining light on it, increases its opacity. Essentially, these terrariums serve as a visual interface for environmental data. By combining physical inputs with digital design, the installation offers an ambient, intuitive way to visualize environmental conditions.
These jellyfish, that exist in the physical world, also have "digital twins" or counterparts in an online simulation. As they evolve and acquire new behavioral traits digitally, these characteristics are ported back to the fishbowl interface. In other words, the simulation provides a sandbox for evolution, and the terrarium acts as a real-world testing ground. This participatory model turns the terrarium into an interactive, networked experiment in evolution and adaptation. By creating interconnected environments, these terrariums serve as an additional layer to visualize the synthetic evolution and adaptations of the digital life forms, and give them a "body" through sensors in reality.
Thus, "Digital Terrarium" is a reorientation of how we engage with environmental data, allowing it to be de-abstracted into an experiential, aesthetic, and interactive medium. Rather than reducing information to numerical metrics, this project creates a visual interface that focuses on how to build an intuitive and relational component to data. It is a practice (both a meditation and one facilitated by technology) that allows one to sense and acknowledge real-time environmental changes while contributing local data to a collective digital ecosystem.
The installation integrates technical precision and artistic design:
- Holographic Projection: Implemented using the Pepper's Ghost technique with carefully angled transparent surfaces to create the illusion of a 3D hologram.
- Sensor Integration / Hardware: Noise, temperature, and humidity sensors collect real-time environmental data, feeding into the digital visualization. Running locally on a Raspberry Pi and local server.
- Entity Design: A digital "creature" was programmed to respond to sensor data with reactive behaviors, such as changing movement, shape, and color.
Materials
- Glass fish bowl
- Transparent acrylic / polycarbonate sheets for Pepper's Ghost hologram projection
- Environmental sensors: noise, temperature, lux, pressure humidity modules
- Raspberry Pi + local server for data processing and integration
- Processing for visualizing and animating the digital entity, and ecosystem simulation
Presentation overview:
Built in collaboration with Ira Winder, and supported by Digital Architecture Lab.