Microworld

Free

Suitable for all ages

Microworld is the new touring exhibition featuring eight different digital creatures.

Move around the space and play with the creatures to find out more about what they do and how you can interact with them, whether it is through movement or sound, or you can simply watch them in action.

Microworld is an immersive space filled with digital creatures which through projection and animation encourage interaction, experimentation and play. The creatures communicate with each other and visitors. Sensors, projectors and screens in the space create an engaging and intuitive digital ecosystem.

Microworld is designed for all ages. The interactive artworks encourage visitors to play, explore, experiment, problem-solve, collaborate, create and learn. Microworld is inclusive, requiring no specialist knowledge. As soon as you walk into a Microworld, you start affecting it.

Suitable for all ages and abilities.

See the exhibition from Monday 15 July 2024 until 5 January 2025.

As you walk around the space you will discover eight different Microworlds for you to play with:

Tangled Bank – Lets eat! Colourful roots and branches grow and blossom before your eyes, creating a dense thicket of life. As you move closer, a cloud of plant-munching aphids appears. As you walk closer, you’ll discover that you are the cloud and that you can direct which areas of the screen are eaten away

Aeroplankton – Creatures of the airwaves. Make some noise, clap your hands, sing or shout. Different frequencies create different types of Aeroplankton. The longer the noise goes on the larger the Aeroplankton get.

Cockatoo Squid – A musical companion. When all is quiet, the Cockatoo squid is small. It will call out from time to time beckoning you to join it. If it hears a sound, it will call back in a singsong voice. You can join it in a duet, although it frequently goes off into its own reveries. Look at the squids’ pulsating skin, it’s reflecting what is in the gallery. Can you see yourself?

It’s Alive: Ants – Draw with your body. As you move in front of the screen, your outline is picked up by hundreds of pixel-sized ants – if you look closely, you’ll see them busily walking back and forth – leaving a trail.

Multiple – Multiply yourself across the screen. When you stand in front of Multiple you will be captured as a silhouette. If you wave your hand, the screen silhouette will wave back. Other silhouettes will soon join in. What shapes can you make?

Octoscope – Mirrors, lights, colours and tentacles. You see a square-shaped screen with an eight-sided decorative kaleidoscopic pattern on it. Some of the elements look biological, you can see what looks like wriggling human fingers, but you can’t make out what is driving the image. As you move closer you see your reflection as part of the form you have become part of the 8-sided creature.

Racing Demons – The screen is divided into thousands of coloured pixels. They change colours in waves – each colour races after the one before. You will see rainbow spirals of activity.

Compound Eye – Insects see the world through many different types of eyes with multiple lenses. This can help them to move quickly if they sense danger in many different directions, which is why it is so hard to swat a fly! You will see yourself multiplied across many lenses. Imagine if your own eyes worked this way.

Credits:

Artists: Genetic Moo

Production: Lumen Studios

Sound design: Julia Schauerman