The Biomachine has two parts. The first part is the structure on the wall, which is covered in viruses. We have viruses that are part of our everyday lives.
The second part of the installation is humankind’s response to having viruses in our everyday lives.
BIOMACHINE
The wall sculpture in the lobby of the Energy and Environment Laboratory building represents the complex research IEE faculty and researchers are performing. Each theme reveals aspects of the research through patterns, materials, and symbology. The wall sculpture is fabricated from primarily aluminum, with a powder-coated or anodized finish.
This is the pilot project of a new series of science/art collaborations produced by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. In addition to more traditional photography and metal sculpture, viewers are immersed in the life cycle of the zombie ant fungus through an augmented reality iPad application, which allows them to interact with the unfolding story.
Interactive touch board created for Sarah & Seth Bordenstein from the Penn State Microbiome Center. The wall tells the story of “Wolbachia”, a bacteria phage that attacks the reproductive organs of mosquitos. The design was created using Adobe Illustrator and Cinema4D. The animations, projection mapping, and interactive sensors were created using Adobe After Effects and Madmapper.
Proteins to Pandemics: infectious disease research across scales at CIDD. This interactive touch board was created for the annual Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) event in May 2023, featuring the amazing research of the grad students of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. The interactive wall tells the story of Proteins to pathogens (viruses, bacteria, fungi) to hosts (humans, wildlife, livestock, plants) AND vectors (mosquitoes, ticks) to populations (of hosts) to epidemics (local) to pandemics (global).