Theo Jansen has been working on this new “form” of life for over 25 years. This creature is made of yellow pipes and they “eat” wind to walk. The unique skeleton structure enables this creature to live by itself, walking flawlessly on the beach. Varies prototypes(“Animarus Apodiacula”, “Animarus  Suspendisse” and “Animarus Turgentia Vela” etc.) have been developed and the Strandbeest became something bizarrely organic like this in this video:

This living life form really intrigues by its combination of art and science. Although it doesn’t use any electric technology, Strandbeest is a work of art and mechanical perfection. The beauty of seemingly random behavior is what made this piece one of my favorite. It let me think of perpetual motion possibility at first look. The ability of making use of wind to drive a “machine” this big, not mentioning the recent version can even store the wind power itself, is truly amazing.

CO2 Dress designed by Danish design firm Diffus (https://youtu.be/3LuvLmCiSuw)

It is a beautiful pollution sensing dress. The most fascinating function of the dress is that the CO2 dress monitors the CO2 levels in a given environment and visualizes the data in real time with a flickering of light patterns. 

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a colorless, and the carbon dioxide itself can cause headache, dizziness, nausea and other symptoms at high levels. It is very clever that people can realize the level of carbon dioxide through the dress in the space – slow pulsations when the levels are low, short and hectic when they’re high. The CO2 dress is functional and aesthetic. I would love to buy this dress for the environment!

The dress is constructed using soft circuit techniques including the Lilypad Arduino, and the LEDs are stitched into the embroidery of the dress.

The project called Hunt For High Tech from Bart Hess. It’s a collection of “conceptual textiles and animations that seek to harness both nature and technology in an effort to create a new human/animal archetype. ” (http://barthess.nl/hunt-for-high-tech.html)

I like the hairy shoes most. As the wearer’s second skin, this pair of shoes can breath as a live animal. Bart imagined animals could be part robot, part biological organism. I like his cyborg idea, the breathing and the aesthetic. But I don’t think their breathing is synchronizing with wearer’s breath, which is a little regret. I would love to try some second skin design in the future. It inspires me how to demonstrate a live skin by breathing.