I’ve just posted a new interactive sculptural piece entitled The Captives to my Creative Discovery portfolio. The piece explores the idea of imprisonment and passive observation of viewers. It’s a concept I have been working on and prototyping the technology for a few years now. Given current world events, the concept has become more salient and relevant than I had originally intended. Mice are trapped in a display case with a large lock conspicuously preventing their freedom. The mice scurry about looking for shelter or a way out, triggering a motion sensor that causes pleading messages to be written and spoken to viewers to release them from captivity. The key is in the lock. A viewer could end the piece at any time. I created the piece using an EZIO card, a motion sensor, and custom software authored in Lingo using Macromedia Director.