Photography by: Roy Rochlin

Code Guru: Surya Mattu

Music by: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin'

My creature is "alive". Touch is a kinetic sculpture with smooth organic motion activated by touch and touches the users back.

I’ve been sculpting from a very young age, and believe that touching a sculpture is one of the  most important senses activated when experiencing art. Most museums put up barriers between us and the art. I believe touch is the most important part of the experience. Touch Creature is my personal attempt to break the rules of the traditional museum, where you have to be quiet, and just observe the art. I want the viewers to leave my exhibit feeling like they were engaged deeply with the art.

For the build:

Plexiglass is used as the core material. It's light weight and easy to use for rapid prototyping. All the parts were laser cut. For the centre part a silicone 1/4" tube is used to centre the pieces.  Four coated wires (Beadalon) are pulling the tentacle in directions of up, down, left and right.

I learnt how to build the tentacle on an online class of Stan Winston School of Character Arts.

Conductive wire is weaved through out the tentacle behaving as switches to read where and when a tentacle was touched.

For the brains and controls:

Arduino is used as the brains (micro controller).

12 MG995 motors are used to create all the movement.

MPR121 is the conductive chip to read when and where a tentacle is touched.

18V/3A Power bench supply