The Silkworm Project
Materials: silkworms, electronics, containers
spring 2014, ongoing
The Silkworm Project seeks to design a hybrid interactive machine consisting of silkworms and electronics, with the ultimate goal of generating self-organized flat and spatial silk structures. The silk machine utilizes a closed feedback loop system between the organic and the artificial, where a silkworm's each present position within the spinning area of the machine motivates it to move towards its next position. This interaction is documented through the silk spun by the worm. Currently, this piece is still under development.
The Silkworm Project is interested in possibilities within automata and fabrication, in terms of borrowing from and combining past, present and future techniques. A focus lies in finding the artistic intersection between technologies such as the silk loom, information organization within computing, and more recently, developments in 3D printing methodologies, in creating a series of entirely insect-generated silk structures.
Experiments are being conducted with heat and electric stimulation and differing spatial configurations to gain understanding of what silkworms respond to and how they behave in different constructed situations. The current prototype is a conceptual prototype of a 2-dimential silk printing machine. Further tests of this prototype will be continued in spring of 2015.
Silkworm Project, flat silk screen printing machine, prototype 1
Silkworm Project, flat silk screen printing machine, prototype 1, details and side view
Silkworm Project, flat silk screen printing machine, prototype 1, adjustable electrode matrix
Silkworm side. 2014. SH.
Purple silkworm. 2014. SH.