The SCOBY Breastplate is a sustainable, interactive wearable that was slowly grown and fabricated from kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) biofilm over the course of 13 weeks. When worn, LEDs embedded within the SCOBY breastplate produce different light responses in reaction to the wearer being hugged, tapped, or brushed. Through this project, we challenge the fail-fast and rapid prototyping trends that inhabit creative technology research, and instead explore what it means to design at the pace of another living organism.

 

Living Matter Lab 

 

Publications

  • Fiona Bell, Derrek Chow, Hyelin Choi, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. SCOBY Breastplate: Slowly Growing a Microbial Interface. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1-15. (Warsaw, Poland Feb. 26-March 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1145/3569009.3572805

  • Fiona Bell, Derrek Chow, Eldy Lazaro Vasquez, Laura Devendorf, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. Designing Interactions with Kombucha SCOBY. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1-15. (Warsaw, Poland Feb. 26-March 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1145/3569009.3571841

Associated Researchers

Mirela Alistar
Mirela Alistar
Assistant Professor • Living Matter Lab • BIOCHIPS, PERSONAL MEDICINE, DIY BIO • COMPUTER SCIENCE
ATLAS Institute
Fiona Bell
Fiona Bell
PhD, Creative Technology and Design ‘23 • BIOPLASTICS, BIODESIGN, WEARABLES
ATLAS Institute
Hyelin Choi in front of a wall of flowers
Hyelin Choi
Undergraduate Student
Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology
Laura Devendorf
Laura Devendorf
Assistant Professor • Unstable Design Lab • SMART TEXTILES, HCI, DESIGN RESEARCH • INFORMATION SCIENCE
Eldy Lázaro
Eldy Lázaro
PhD Student • Lecturer • DIGITAL FABRICATION, PARAMETRIC DESIGN, WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY
ATLAS Institute