The concept for the viruscraft game is to have a realtime genetic model or simulation of the host evolution which is adapting to the properties of a virus you are building (either on screen or via a tangible interface as part of an exhibit). This model needs to be realistic, but only up to a point - it can be more of a caricature of biology than a research model would ...

We had arrived in the Sonoran desert. A place of desiccated time, layered time, geological, vegetal, human time. Time kneads the Earth's crust into deep folds, cracks and canyons. Plants lay dormant through cycles of drought or grow slowly for centuries, bursting into blossom after the first rains. Humans come and go. Blown through the ages like tumbleweeds. Things don't really decay here. They shrivel, dry up or slowly rust ...

We launched the accesslab project last week with two pilot workshops. This is a write-up of how the workshops were run and why, together with some of the feedback and modifications we will make in future.

A few weeks ago we kicked off the new Penelope project, one of our first jobs was to deliver the prototype pattern matrix (built with the help of Makernow) to the Museum of Casts of Classical sculpture in Munich for exhibition over the summer as part of our Penelopean lab. Our next mission in Cornwall is to design new pattern matrix hardware so we can start manufacturing a small run ...