Project Info

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Year /
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Life Integrated Network

As part of their ongoing partnership, NXT Museum and Samsung commissioned Baast Studio to create an interactive installation for their exhibition 'Life in a Different Resolution' featuring Random International. The goal was to merge art and technology, using the Samsung Flip phone as both a showcase and a creative medium.

Summary

Inspired by natural dispersion patterns, the installation reacts to visitor movement, creating a dynamic, evolving display. Through motion tracking and generative visuals, we transformed 50+ Samsung Flip phones into an art medium and immersive experience that explores the parallels between life forms and technology.

Project highlights

Years on display
1.5
Samsung Flip Phones
50+
Daily User Engagement
300+
Average Interaction Time
4 min
Motion tracking accuracy
90%
Real-time synchronization across all Samsung Flip phones
100%

"There are not a lot of artists that can deliver such a piece in 4 weeks, to program an interactive digital artwork with 70 phones, that looks incredible and that works… it always works"

Merel van Helsdingen, Director of NXT Museum

Background

Our goal was to create an engaging experience that would highlight the Samsung Flip phone in a unique and immersive way while exploring deeper questions about life, algorithms, and the relationship between technology and nature.

Can life be interpreted as a coded network? Can we predict the patterns in which life exists and evolves? How do humans intervene, and what is our true relationship with technology?

Our Inspiration and processs

With an exciting brief and more than 50 Flip phones to work with, we began by imagining each device as an individual organism, each with its own agency, each reacting to its environment.

This sparked a bigger question: what happens in nature when multiple organisms come together? Is there a hidden pattern or an underlying algorithm we can learn from? That curiosity shaped our creative vision. We set out to represent a superorganism, a concept found throughout nature. Even humans are superorganisms. In our piece, each phone became the host of a living, evolving entity, starting as a single cell and growing into a swimmer. Together, they responded to stimuli as one interconnected whole.

Technology for inclusion

To ensure the interaction was truly inclusive, we developed a motion-based tracking technology designed for accessibility. This approach allows multiple users, regardless of their clothing, body type, or the use of assistive devices, to seamlessly engage with the installation.

Each Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 device became the host of an organism, swimming, existing, reacting to stimuli, and becoming part of a group.

We took inspiration from nature

One key principle was that the technology we used had to reflect the behavior of a superorganism. For example, we used an algorithm to simulate how the phones should be arranged, and connected all the devices to a central computer, mimicking natural systems.

A talk show about digital art

At the end of the project, we were invited to the Inspiration Academy, a live show broadcast from the Amsterdam Tower, to talk about our process, our inspiration, and our perspective on digital art with Merel van Helsdingen, the director of the Nxt Museum.