WEI Qianjie 魏倩洁 YANG Yanbin 杨彦斌 ZHANG Jinwen 张竞文
Don’t hurt me is an interactive installation, which performs acts of self-protection in contradictory relationships by constructing a relationship between audience and installation as harmer and victim. Our project consists of two parts: the thorny glove and the balloon plant. People wear the barbed gloves and the barbed objects give the impulse to puncture the balloon. However, when we move our hands closer to the balloon plant, the balloon shrinks due to the flow of water, thus making it difficult to be punctured.
This is an expression of the principle of the mimosa’s self-protection mechanism: when storm or insects approach, a change in electrical signals causes the water in mimosa to be transferred from the leaves to the roots, which causes the leaves to shrink. The interior of the leaf is then difficult to damage.
Through our interaction with this installation, we hope that people will understand the way in which Mimosa protects itself. The plant is avoiding possible external damage in its own way.
By empowering the viewer with the ability to ‘hurt’, we stimulate an emotional and interactive awareness of harm in the installation, creating an unconscious interaction between the two. The protective behaviour of the mimosa is exaggerated through visual expressions of shape and colour.
The technical part of the device is implemented by an Arduino ultrasonic sensor and a water pump module. When a person approaches the ultrasonic sensor, a change in the electrical signal causes the water inside the balloon to flow back into the water bottle.