Biotopy: A Biotic Game and Interactive Installation
Fig. 1: Biotopy Game Interface
Abstract
Biotopy is a biotic game and interactive installation that speculates a more playful and collective mode of scientific discovery. Connecting bioreactors to game engines, it synthesizes scientific methods with gameplay mechanics. Players are citizen scientists, growing and interacting with microbial cultures to take care of a virtual creature on their computer. Biotopy is a playful interface meditating between the biotic and the digital, generating a novel space for both play and discovery.
Biotopy provokes questions of how biotic agents will live with virtual universes, how scientific discoveries could be facilitated through collective play, and how we might practice a more expansive scientific self.
Biotopy is a collaborative project by Will Freudenheim, Wendi Yan, and Darren Zhu.
R&D also included major contributions by Jessica Shand and Omar Rizwan.