MorphoCarve: Carving morphogenetic prototypes

MorphoCarve: Carving morphogenetic prototypes Tim McGinley, University of South Australia, [email protected] Kei Hoshi, University of South Australia, [email protected] Lisa Iacopetta, University of South Australia, [email protected] Abstract

Design disciplines have always been interested in biological growth as a potent metaphor for design. By interpreting this metaphor as a process, it is possible to represent design artefacts as the result of a series of pseudo biological developmental stages. These stages represent a hierarchical model of the development of the resulting artefact. This paper proposes an approach of ‘morphogenetic prototyping’ which aims to use these stages to support a multidimensional design process and design experience for the development of ‘morphogenetic prototypes’. This new design paradigm requires a new interface to support this design experience. For instance it is proposed that the biological development metaphors of segmentation could be supported through a cutting or slicing metaphor. This metaphor is defined here as ‘carving’. Furthermore it is suggested that for the metaphor should be a reinforced with a tangible user interface (TUI). Therefore this paper describes the development of a 2d mockup that will be used to establish the requirements for a morphogenetic prototyping TUI in future work. Tangible user interface; morphogenetic prototyping; morphoCarve; morphogenesis; architecture; robots;

Many design approaches have been based on biological systems, mechanisms or processes. There is an accompanying interest in biomimicry and the study of biological mechanisms in adult organisms. However, how organisms actually develop and the implications of applying an analogous approach in design, has received less attention. It is clear that there are advantages for incorporating the biological development stages in design. Beal (2011) proposes that ‘the decoupling of ultimate structure from developmental program might lead to more adaptivity in engineered systems as well as stronger biological models for

evolvability and phenotypic adaptation’. (Beal, Mozeika, Lowell, & Usbeck, 2011) have explored this in a study of robots. This has also been explored in architecture by McGinley (2015) and Roudavski (2009) as well as in games by Porter (2011), among other design disciplines. These studies provide an idea of how design information systems might be created to support morphogenetic design. However what an appropriate ‘design experience’ for morphogenetic prototyping might be, is less clear. Therefore this paper proposes an interface to support a design experience based on the metaphor of biological development. The following section provides a brief introduction to morphogenesis and its use in design disciplines. Following this a new ‘morphogenetic prototyping’ approach to design is introduced as an approach to apply the metaphor of biological development as a design experience. Following a discussion of this approach, the main challenges to developing morphogenetic prototypes to support designers are outlined with a focus on the interdisciplinary and interaction design challenges for users of these systems. Morphogenesis In medieval Europe it was thought that morphogenetic development (growth) in humans began with a homunculus or ‘little man’ which was a fully formed microscopic human baby that existed prior to fertilization (Coen, 1999). Later it was thought that the unfertilized egg contained an abstract ‘body-plan’ that grew and informed the development of the organism (Lawrence, 2001). DeLanda (2002) describes the following challenge with the body-plan concept: ‘while the form of the final product (an actual horse, bird or human) does have specific lengths, areas and volumes, the body-plan cannot possibly be defined in these terms but must be abstract enough to be compatible with a myriad combination of these extensive quantities’. It is therefore useful to think of the body-plan as a description of the adult form of the organism (phenotype) which is a result of the developmental growth processes of the organism transcribed in the genotype. In this case, morphogenesis can be thought of as a description for the multiplicitous processes that collectively result in the body-plan of the organism. However the complexity of these processes at a cellular scale can make their relationship to the formation of the body-plan challenging to comprehend. In developmental biology, the mechanical stress model of morphogenesis (Wartlick, Mumcu, Jülicher, & Gonzalez-Gaitan, 2011) describes morphogens which stretch or compress cells (stretching causes cells to divide) depending on their proximity and the purpose of the morphogen. Describing morphogenetic development in terms of forces and spatial displacement could be an appropriate model to describe morphogenesis at a cellular level for a design context. However it is a very complex way to view development and to link the implications of molecular processes to the design and fabrication of large complex artefacts such as buildings for instance.

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Therefore, whilst it should be analogous to its biological origins, a simplified model of morphogenetic development is appropriate in order for it to be manipulable by designers with potentially little biological knowledge or interest. Morphogenetic Engineering Simon (1962) argues that all complex systems (of which self-organizing systems are included) show some element of hierarchy in their organization. Doursat et al. (2012) argue that biological systems offer design solutions that are both architectured (hierarchical) and self-organized. Morphogenetic engineering embraces both these characteristics without getting conceptually overloaded in the cellular processes. By ‘reverse engineering’ the final ‘body-plan’ of the design artefact, morphogenetic engineering offers a pseudo developmental model for the design artefact.

Figure 1. "Spanish Army iRobot PackBot 510 IED robot" by Outisnn is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Beal et al. (2011) describe morphogenetic engineering as an approach to take biological development principles and apply this directly into the development of engineered objects. This is an extension of the area of developmental robotics which deals with among other issues, how robots could learn and be influenced by their environment (Jin, Member, & Meng, 2011). Beal et al. (2011) use developmental stages to describe the morphogenetic development of iRobot’s PackBot (Figure 1).

Figure 2. M orphogenetic engineering example of the first three stages of a developing robot.


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Figure 2 shows a morphogenetic engineering diagram of the hierarchical and staged representation of the development of the PackBot (Beal et al., 2011). The diagram is not meant to describe how the PackBot should be built, but it instead offers a hierarchical perspective on the pseudo morphogenetic development of the robot using morphogenetic concepts such as compartmentalization (Kirschner & Gerhart, 2005). Beal et al. (2011) offer the following 8 stages to the pseudo morphogenetic development of the PackBot: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Basal coordinates created Course partition established Electronics defined Limb buds Wheels (from limb buds) Flipper buds Wheel edges connect to create tracks Flippers created (from flipper buds)

These stages are analogous to developmental stages in biological organisms, however in order for them to useful to designers it would need to be possible to manipulate the design at different stages. This is idea explored in the following section. Morphogenetic Prototyping To address the challenge of designing in this new paradigm, this paper reconceives of the design artefact as a multi-dimensional ‘morphogenetic prototype’. In this way, morphogenetic prototyping expands the approach of morphogenetic engineering to explore among other things a design interface for morphogenetic engineering. Figure 3 provides an example of a potential morphogenetic prototyping interface based on standard digital design tools metaphors of windows and a mouse interface. In this example the developmental stages are all displayed to the designer at the same time allowing them to see the downstream implications for stage specific interactions.

Figure 3: Example of a multi-dimensional design interaction based on contemporary (window and mouse) user interface metaphors

However it is clear that standard tools and traditional design interface metaphors will not be appropriate for a user to develop their designs morphogenetically, it is therefore necessary to identify the user and system requirements for morphogenetic prototyping. A potential


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morphogenetic prototyping interface is described in the following extract (McGinley, 2015) in which the (architect) user tries to: … decide which designGenes to trigger with each division. No division, no level progression and no growth. The typological template needs to hit BDS [building development stage] 3 first thing tomorrow for the engineers to sign off. [… She] rotates [the prototype] to align with the murmurs of the voices on the site. Primary axes set, they shift phase to form planes that slice the egg to inform the openings in the blastoderm. It burns the sensation of the sun, wind and snow on its skin and highlights segments that might adapt and protect itself accordingly. In that scenario it is the setting of the axis that would be the first interaction for the design interface, this is similar to that proposed by Beal et al. (2011), alternatively it may be that this is preset in the system. The following section investigates previous approaches to how this might be achieved. Porter, (2011) provides a system to support the scripted development of organic forms for the games industry. Porter has developed an interactive development environment (IDE), however it is based on a code development IDE. Alternatively, McGinley (2015) proposes an interface based on contemporary CAD systems. Both of these examples miss an opportunity for the user to interact and development morphogenetic prototypes in a fundamentally different way. Therefore this paper proposes that an entirely different interface analogy is proposed to support morphogenetic prototyping. Beal’s stages of development for the PackBot describe many stages of separation. This paper seeks an alternative design method to coding directly into an IDE or drawing lines in a CAD application based on the ancient methods of drawing boards. This paper proposes that cutting or slicing is a more appropriate metaphor for morphogenetic prototyping which is conceived here as ‘carving’. Carving is proposed here more in the sense of skateboarding and surfing culture than its traditional meaning in sculpture. In morphogenetic carving it the ‘lines’ that are drawn and the forces they imply that is intended to inform an appropriate design experience for morphogenetic prototyping. Carving This section provides the background literature on the challenge of developing a ‘carving’ metaphor for morphogenetic prototyping, having identified that morphogenetic prototyping requires a tangible user interface (TUI) and for a ‘virtual’ morphogenetic prototype to be ‘carved’ by the designer with the designer’s body and an appropriate ‘carving’ metaphorical tool. Tangible Interaction in Blended Reality Space This section sketches out critical issues relating to morphogenetic prototyping arising from the recent evolution of free movement interaction techniques as an alternative design interface to the ordinary developmental process using conventional such user interfaces as


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menus, pointer, mouse and keyboard. The potential of the conventional user interfaces to support morphogenetic prototyping is explored in Figure 3. Many recent Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designs and research such as tangible interaction, augmented or mixed reality, ubiquitous and pervasive computing, context-aware computing, wearable computer and so on Jacob, Girouard, Horn, & Zigelbaum, (2008) clearly exhibit the blend of the physical and the digital. Hoshi & Waterworth, (2009) and Imaz, B. Benyon, (2006) have explored the notion of seamless mixed reality space as an interactive blended reality environment where the physical and the digital are intimately combined and affect each other, what they call Blended Reality Space. Tangible, embedded and embodied interaction, sensor-based techniques for interacting with virtual entities via the manipulation of physical objects in space, have been frequently discussed in the HCI literature. The movement and position sensing techniques make ‘the digital information directly manipulable with our hands, and perceptible through our peripheral senses through their physically embodiment’ (Ishii & Ullmer, 1997; Ullmer & Ishii, 2000). At the same time, recent design processes in general have been increasingly pervaded with digital information from environmentally built-in media devices such as high definition displays, sensor-based input-output techniques and sophisticated visual expressions. Tangible interaction in blended reality space has been a growing object of study for the HCI, design and architecture, as part of a widespread effort to develop viable and more flexible alternative design interface. It offers a relevant opportunity for morphogenetic prototyping. Multi user Collaborative design Interface There are several methods for implementing blended reality spaces for collaboration. Hoshi & Waterworth (2009) reported, tangibility increases sense of perceived presence (sense of being together), contextual cues about material, shape, size, texture, and weight configuration of the physical object provide improvement presence in multi user collaboration, a convergence between the physical and virtual.

Figure 4. Tangible Interaction in Blended Reality S pace


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The interactive prototypes proposed in this paper for multi user collaboration could work by creating harmony through using an appropriate ‘carving’ metaphor with contextual cues from the morphogenetic prototyping process that provide augmented improvement in a blended reality environment. Tangibility is not limited to using physical objects or tools. Different points-of-view, first and third (Bailenson, Beall, Blascovich, Raimundo, & Weisbuch, 2001; Ratan, Santa Cruz, & Vorderer, 2007), would effect on individual design and social communication in blended reality space. The third person view may be more important for multi user collaboration design than individual (Hoshi, Pesola, Waterworth, & Waterworth, 2009). Tangible interaction in blended reality space would be suitable especially for the morphogenetic development of forms in the design process. Effective computational collaboration in the morphogenetic development of forms in the design process will be built on existing approaches in the fields of blended reality based interaction, while also using contextual cues and appropriate person views effectively (Figure 4). In the next section an appropriate method to development a mockup morphogenetic prototyping interface is proposed. Method This paper aims to propose an approach to enable designers to morphogenetically engineer artefacts based on the example in Beal et al. (2011). This involves the development of two elements; a file to encode the stages, development rules and ‘genes’ in an information system and a ‘MorphoCarve’ interface to enable the designer to morphogenetically prototype (carve) a design based on the information in a loaded developmental system. The development of information systems is a complex process. Peffers, Tuunanen, & Rothenberger (2008) propose the use of a design science research method to support the development of information systems. Their approach can be summarized in the following stages: problem identification and motivation; definition of solution objectives; design and development; demonstration; evaluation; and finally communication. The problem identification stage has been established in the previous sections. The evaluation stage represents the discussion stage in this paper and the communication stage is this paper. The remaining stages are addressed in the following sections. Solution objectives This paper aims to identify an approach to support the designer to morphogenetically prototype architecture through ‘carving’. The background identified that tangible user interfaces could be a way to provide a design ‘experience’ to enable the designer to engage more naturally with a morphogenetic design process. To support this an analogy of a ‘sword’ to ‘carve’ the design is employed to support the development of an innovative interface. Therefore a solution needs to be developed to satisfy the following criteria to enable the designer to: 1. carve the design (carve as in skateboarding, surfing or (less so) sculpture);


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2. visualize the downstream impact of their actions on the development of the prototype; 3. pop the current design view down and upstream through the developmental process 4. and to support the design experience as much as or more than the design process. The second objective, to visualize the downstream development is outside the scope of this paper and will be explored in future work. The following section describes the design and development process to address the remaining objectives. Design and development The user requirements for this tool are for it to support the user to ‘carve’ a morphogenetic prototype at a specified stage of development and ‘pop’ through the development stages.

Figure 5. Use case diagram for morphogenetic prototyping

Figure 5 presents a use case diagram based on these objectives, the narrative and the morphogenetic engineering sequence presented by Beal et al., (2011). Table 1. Example of the morphogenetic prototyping file in a table Stage

Description

Commands

Axis

Owner

1

basal coordinates

Coordinate system

N/A

System

2

course partition

Divide

AP

User

3

electronics defined

Articulate

Local

User

4

limb buds

Scale

Local

User

5

wheels

Define

Local

User

6

tracks

Derive

Local

User

7

flipper buds

Derive

Local

User

8

flippers

Scale

Local

User

The specify operation extension to the carve use case means that the tool should be able to process different carve commands. These could be to define an axis, or a gradient diffusion


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for instance. The types of different commands are explore in Table 1. The different types of commands are explored in the following sections. Coordinate System - this is the opportunity to define the anterioposterior (AP) and other axis which is critical to morphogenetic prototyping. Articulate - express region in the gap between two regions. Scale - grow / shrink specified region in defined axis. Define - state what it is. Derive - new affordance from others. In addition, each row in the morphogenetic prototyping file should catch the user input for each stage. Tool mockup This paper proposes a mockup of the proposed tool based on the morphogenetic engineering example proposed by Beal et al. (2011). To achieve this a tool was developed in the Processing development environment. The application (Figure 6) uses a similar idea to that promoted by the popular fruit ninja mobile application. It used the analogue of a sword through an on screen swipe interface to carve the prototype in a game context. MorphoCarve concentrate on the location and direction of the cuts. These gestures could then be interpreted to support different stage specific behaviors on the prototype. Beal et al. (2011) propose that the morphogenetic engineering sequence starts off with a ‘square egg’. Therefore it was possible to develop the mockup tool (Figure 6) to work on a rectangular design.

Figure 6. M orphoCarve processing sketch


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Discussion The paper defined two new terms; firstly, morphogenetic prototype and secondly, ‘carving’ as an appropriate metaphor for morphogenetic prototyping. In biological terms, ontogeny describes the organism’s development from genotype to phenotype. Therefore, morphogenetic prototyping (MP) could be defined as a multi-dimensional (ontogenical) manipulable description for a design. To support this definition, the presented mockup describes the progression through the developmental stages and allows the user to interact with the system with different gestures. In future work the downstream implications of the designer’s actions could be represented to the designer to inform design decision making in real time. However, most importantly at this stage, this paper paves the way for an investigation of the potential of using tangible user interfaces based on the mock-up tool presented here (Figure 6). The current tool follows the morphogenetic engineering process. Whilst this is enough to show the potential for 2d carving of the morphogenetic sequence. It does not describe the full potential of the morphogenetic prototyping process. For instance a ‘real’ biological organism could act as an ‘ontogenical reference model’ (ORM) for the pseudo development of a morphogenetic design prototype, resulting in a morphogenetic prototyping design process consisting of four stages: 1. 2. 3. 4.

identify an appropriate ontogenical reference model (ORM) map the ORM to a fully developed design artefact; reverse engineer the phenotype back to its initial stage of development (seed); identify the ‘designGenes’ based on the reverse engineered process.

Beal et al. (2011) paper does not identify a specific ontogenical reference model. This was satisfactory for this paper, but future work in morphogenetic prototyping should consider using the four stages outlined here. Whilst it is not clear if this process could identify the designGenes (genotype) code of the PackBot, it is clear that an appropriate interface would be required to support this the reverse engineering of the genotype from the phenotype. Therefore future work should investigate how, ontogenical reference models (ORM)s could be integrated into the design system and how such a system could be used to reverse engineer existing architecture as well as prototype new designs with customized ‘designGenes’. Conclusion This paper identified the requirements for a (tangible) user interface for morphogenetic prototyping based on the metaphor of carving. These requirements were explored in a mockup tool. The tool described the development of the morphogenetic engineering example proposed by Beal et al. (2011). In future work, the 2D MorphoCarve prototype presented here will be extended by exploring the user and systems requirements for a 3D tangible user interface. It appears that tangible user interfaces coupled with the MorphoCarve system presented here could provide a design ‘experience’ of morphogenetic prototyping for


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designers that is more appropriate to the approach morphogenetic prototyping than traditional CAD and user interface models. References Bailenson, J. N., Beall, a., Blascovich, J., Raimundo, M., & Weisbuch, M. (2001). Intelligent agents who wear your face: Users’ reactions to the virtual self. Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2190/2001, 86–99. doi:10.1007/ 3-540-448128_8 Beal, J. (2011). Functional blueprints: An approach to modularity in grown systems. Swarm Intelligence, 5(3-4), 257– 281. doi:10.1007/s11721-011-0056-x Beal, J., Mozeika, A., Lowell, J., & Usbeck, K. (2011). Morphogenesis as a Reference Architecture for Engineered Systems, 1, 2–3. Coen, E. (1999). The art of genes. Oxford University Press. De Landa, M. (2002). Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture. Architectural Design, 72(1), 9– 12. Doursat, R., Sayama, H., Michel, O., Verdenal, A., Combes, D., Escobar-gutiérrez, A., … Bentley, P. J. (2012). Morphogenetic Engineering. In R. Doursat, H. Sayama, & O. Michel (Eds.), Morphogenetic Engineering (Understand., pp. 1–20). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-33902-8 Hoshi, K., Pesola, U. M., Waterworth, E. L., & Waterworth, J. (2009). Tools, perspectives and avatars in blended reality space. Annual Review of CyberTherapy and Telemedicine, 7(1), 91–95. doi:10.3233/978-1-60750-017-991 Hoshi, K., & Waterworth, J. a. (2009). Tangible Presence in Blended Reality Space. In The 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence (pp. 1–10). Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://umu.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:311021/FULLTEXT01.pdf Imaz, B. Benyon, D. (2006). Designing wiht blends: conceptual foundations of human computer interaction and software engineering. MIT press. Ishii, H., & Ullmer, B. (1997). Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (March), 241. doi:http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/ 604045.604048 Jacob, R. J. K., Girouard, A., Hirshfield, L. M., Horn, M. S., Shaer, O., Solovey, E. T., & Zigelbaum, J. (2008). Reality-based interaction: a framework for post-WIMP interfaces. In CHI 2008 (pp. 201–210). doi:10.1145/1357054.1357089 Jin, Y., Member, S., & Meng, Y. (2011). Morphogenetic robotics: An emerging new field in developmental robotics. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part C: Applications and Reviews, 41(2), 145–160. doi:10.1109/TSM CC.2010.2057424 Kirschner, M. W., & Gerhart, J. C. (2005). The plausability of life. Lawrence, P. A. (2001). Morphogens : how big is the big picture ? Nature Cell Biology, 3(July), E151–E154. McGinley, T. (2015). A morphogenetic architecture for intelligent buildings. Intelligent Buildings International, 7(1), 4–15. doi:10.1080/ 17508975.2014.970120


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Peffers, K. E. N., Tuunanen, T., & Rothenberger, M. A. (2008). A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), 45–77. doi:10.2753/MIS0742-1222240302 Porter, B. (2011). A Developmental System For Organic Form Synthesis. Monash University. Ratan, R., Santa Cruz, M., & Vorderer, P. (2007). Multitasking, Presence & Self-Presence on the Wii. Proceedings of Presence 2007, 167–177. Roudavski, S. (2009). Towards Morphogenesis in Architecture. International Journal of Architectural Computing , 07(03), 345–374. Simon, H. A. (1962). The Architecture of Complexity. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 106(6), 467–482. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/985254 Ullmer, B., & Ishii, H. (2000). Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces. IBM Systems Journal, 39(3.4), 915– 931. doi:10.1147/sj.393.0915 Wartlick, O., Mumcu, P., Jülicher, F., & Gonzalez-Gaitan, M. (2011). Understanding morphogenetic growth control -lessons from flies. Nature Reviews. Molecular Cell Biology, 12(9), 594–604. doi:10.1038/nrm3169

Author Biographies Tim McGinley Tim is co-founder of the Morphogenetic Prototyping Lab and lecturer in Architecture (digital) at University of South Australia. He has a background in architecture, computer science, engineering and interaction design. Tim has practiced architecture internationally at Foster + Partners in the UK and ONL [Oosterhuis_Lénárd] in Rotterdam. As a researcher he has worked at the Hyperbody Research Group, TU Delft, and gained his engineering doctorate from the technologies for sustainable built environments centre at the University of Reading, UK. He is currently using the metaphor of developmental biology to inform the development of context specific architecture both on earth and in emerging extra-terrestrial contexts. This ‘morphogenetic prototyping’ process is derived from the ‘reverse engineering’ of existing architecture using model systems from a developmental biology perspective attempts to ultimately identify and manipulate architectural ‘designGenes’. This requires among other things the development of a new design interface (MorphoCarve) and a suite of architectural design information systems (Agile X Systems). Kei Hoshi Kei Hoshi is co-founder of the Morphogenetic Prototyping Lab and senior lecturer in product innovation design at the University of South Australia. With Over 20 year’s professional and academic experience in design, Kei shares his knowledge with UniSA’s product design and industrial design students with a creative and practical approach to teaching. Prior to joining UniSA, he worked a post-doctoral researcher at the University of


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Zurich, as part of the Neurology and Rehabilitation group, exploring new therapy and assessment solution based on wearable movement sensor technology. He has a Ph.D. in Informatics from the department of informatics, Umeå University, Sweden and a Master of Design degree from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology. As a professional designer, he also worked in projects developing A/V & telecommunication systems for a Japanese manufacturing company, and had the opportunity to work with Isao Hosoe, a Milan‐based designer in Italy. His research interests include methods and theory in human-computer interaction, particularly in the human-experiential approach to designing interactive systems. Lisa Iacopetta Lisa Iacopetta is a research assistant at the Morphogenetic Prototyping Lab, University of South Australia (UniSA). She is an experienced User Interface Designer and Front End Developer, who has been working professionally within the design industry for over 5 years. She has a background within the interactive web space and in 2012 & 2013 she was closely involved in the planning, design & development stages of Stereopublic (TEDCity2.0 prize winner), a global participatory art project focused on exploring the quiet spaces within urban environments. She is currently studying a Bachelor of Product Design at UniSA with a focus on Interaction Design.


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