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In a future where humanity becomes more cyborg than human, we envision an organic nursery for newborns—those least altered and closest to nature—to retain their connection to the earth and the instinct of love. As technology advances, this nursery becomes a sanctuary, preserving their innate human qualities through natural materials and plant life. It serves as a space where sensory experiences and a connection to nature help nurture the purest form of humanity, resisting the growing influence of technology. As cyborgs to some extent, we can only view the baby intangibly through the shell, symbolizing how technology reduces our intimacy.
Materials: carrageenan, glycerin, kombucha, tea, brown sugar, scoby, mycelium, rice, wood, pla
Process
Process
1. Transparent Sheet
1. Transparent Sheet
a. Transparency and Texture
The major material we used for the shell is carrageenan. It has a great transparecy and flexibility we wanted. It was also very easy to embed other materials like plants inside to add on to the texture.
b. Connections
After the carrageenan dried, it became hard to shape the entire sheet. So we tried to cut the material and connect pieces to make an ideal shape. However, methods like heat pressing, and sewing didn't turn out successful. Thus, we eventually chose digital fabrication and modular shapes to build up the shape with pieces.
c. Color and Shadow
We tried to manipulate the transparency and shadow of the material by adding colors. Some were natural pigments like scoby juice, tea, and plants, some were food coloring borrowed from Marcele.
d. Rice Glue
The most tricky part of manipulating carrageenan in modular shapes was that with carrageenan dries, the material shrinks and gets detached from the modular supports. To cope with that, we experimented with different thicknesses, and different ingredients but couldn't avoid the tracks.
However, we actually liked the visual impact brought by the cracks and wanted to keep them. Therefore, we tried to overlap the cracked pieces with different colors to highlight the cracks and hopefully connect the shrunk pieces back to the supports. However, this method worked for some pieces, not for the rest. We were not able to put them under control.
Eventually, we used rice glue to secure the pieces and this turned out to be the most effective method among all.
2. Shell Supports
2. Shell Supports
a. Eggshell Trial
We initially wanted to use the ceramic printer to print out the supports because we really liked its texture and the color of the eggshell. However, we failed to control the machine well and gave up on this plan.
b. Organic Patterns
Using modular shape was a choice that tied back to our concept of the future and the potential of different compositions. We were inspired by domes but since we were trying to demonstrate an entirely natural being that takes care of the baby, we tried to manipulate the patterns into more organic shapes. Later in our discussion, we felt that this decision eventually added difficulties to our execution. We had good reasons to do that but maybe we would do it differently if we had another chance.
Using open shapes to experiment with the overall structure:
Designing different closed patterns to fill in the carrageenan:
c. Iterations
The initial design had many slots on the shell to allow most experiments. However, with two many slots disturbed the coherency of the entire piece. Therefore, after having a satisfying composition, we located the necessary slots and made new ones with only necessary slots.
The thicknesses of the connections also went through many experiments to fit.
d. Decorations
We tried to hide the plywood material with other natural materials but they all turned out messy so we took them off eventually.
e. Scaffolding Structure
As Monika pointed out in our critique session, we intended to create a closed shape where the audience has to look at the baby through the carrageenan in a distorted way or through the gaps in between.
The version we showed in class was more open and messy so we adjusted again afterwards.
3. SCOBY, Our Hero
3. SCOBY, Our Hero
Since our concept is closely related to the simulation of human touch, skin, meat, and intimacy, SCOBY was a key element that we wanted to incorporate. We started growing many scoby at the beginning of our project and we utilized what we had in multiple ways.
a. We used Kombucha instead of tap water as the ingredient for our carrageenan sheet to embed the dyed but still natural color.
b. We used Scoby as the connection between the baby and the shell in stripes.
c. We also used scoby as protection covering the baby in sheets.
The second and third usages of Scoby weren't as sustainable, but we did keep part of the Scoby "alive" to reproduce.
Reflection
Reflection
- Who/what were some of your influences/references and how is that apparent in the project?
The concept was drawn from readings about the cyberpunk future and the human body in different classes. We also found the idea of future cradles has been discussed in many other speculative art but we decided to do the opposite: instead of building something highly cyber aesthetic-wise, we chose to build something entirely natural that might be more precious in the future.
- What aspects of the project can you apply to the course/other areas of your work moving forward?
This concept of a cyberpunk future and human nature in this project really responds to many other classes I'm taking. For example, the final project of the Creative Coding Lab is about a message to the future and I also decided on the background to be a cyberpunk future where people need to intentionally get trained to retain their instincts; For my What is New Media final essay, inspired by class readings, I focus on physical touch's role in the near future. During the ideation and execution of this baby shell project, I gained many experiences and inspirations that directly helped with my other work.
The manipulation of bio-plastic we tried in this project helped me learn much more about this material and I think this will definitely be helpful when I'm considering materials for my future work.
- What would you do differently (materials, process, structure, installation, etc.) or how would you further develop the piece?
I think the biggest problem in our final work was the baby stealing the thunder from the shell:(
According to our concept, the natural incubator that we provide for the baby in the future world should be the major part of our installation. However, the way it turned out really was the baby gaining the most attention from the audience. There are a few ways we could improve:
Drawn from the feedback from a few classmates, when we had the big branches (which we later removed to look less messy) in our class presentation, there was more space between the baby and the shell so the audience had the chance to look at the shell first before get to the see the baby. Maybe we could have rethought the installation form or the structure of the shell to create a bigger space between the baby and the incubator.
Instead of sticking with the idea of making the patterns on the shell organic to emphasize the nature essence, we could maybe use more geometric patterns that make the structure easier to build and then work on the natural elements in other ways, eg. more plant-provided texture. We eventually didn't use many plants with colors because we found it messy but maybe with a more clean, simple geometric base and bigger space in the structure, the plants wouldn't cause a mess.
We liked the idea of keeping some space closed while the other open so the audience could see both the inside and the outside. However, according to the reaction and the feedback, we had too much open space where people could directly look closely at the baby and the shell became almost accessories. Therefore, maybe we should have closed it completely and the gaps will be the only open space and I believe that would've been enough.
- Was there specific feedback that offered you new insights or was particularly intriguing?
We didn't find a way to incorporate cyberpunk elements into this natural being we were creating. However, it was quite interesting that all the viewers I talked to said that this piece reminded them of some cyberpunk theme films, games, fashion designs, etc. It's intriguing to see how an artwork can have subtle aesthetic/theme that exists with the audience.
Appendix
Appendix
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