Just completed some upgrade work on Philip Brophy’s Body Malleable interactive installation that has been exhibiting across Australia since 2004, with its opening at ACMI as part of the Australian Culture Now exhibition.

Now headed for Japan’s National Museum Of Art, Osaka as part of an exhibition opening in October called Skin of/ in Contemporary Art, some tweaks and modifications were sought. My initial involvement in the Body Malleable piece was in the redesigning and construction of the mechanism for user interaction, affectionately known as “the pod” (for more on that work scroll down almost to the bottom of this link).

This time around and as part of its maintenance and refurbishment I redesigned and rebuilt the tactile elements of the pod, namely the external doughnut shaped opening and the internal tactile cylindrical channel.

After some experimentation the internal tactile cylinder is now made up of 60 silicone gel-fingers. Fastening the silicone gel was like trying to squeeze a bar of soap, so a floating outer concentric cylinder was used to bind the fingers in place over a holster.

CAD modeling created a two-part gravity-pour Objet (from Arrk) master mould. Anyway, scroll through the pictures above to get a better idea. Below is where the piece is going now.