It Feels

It Feels is an interactive light installation that attempts to recreate a living organism using entirely synthetic materials. The work constructs an artificial bioluminescent field from plastic straws, 3D-printed connectors, and LED circuits controlled by Arduino and motion-tracking sensors. As viewers approach, the lights intensify; as they retreat, the system dims — mimicking the responsiveness of living ecosystems through mechanical programming.

The installation borrows the visual language of bioluminescent forests, but the materials tell a different story. Plastic straws — disposable, non-biodegradable, symbolic of ecological collapse — become the structural foundation for simulated life. The mechanics are deliberately visible: exposed circuits, modular connectors, synthetic glow. The work does not hide its artifice; it foregrounds the question of whether life can be replicated through the very materials that threaten it.

The piece asks: what are we actually programming when we build nature from plastic? Is this speculative design, or a preview of adaptation? The installation operates as both technical experiment and ecological provocation — a responsive organism constructed from the debris of the Anthropocene, glowing softly in a gallery as if waiting to evolve.