So our project was about plastic/electronic bug toys merging with nature to create an uncanny sculpture about nature meeting technology. This, as it is, could be the "backyard" for "smart house" as it is, just expanded in form.
But there is more to consider. While creating our sculpture, I couldn't help thinking of lost toys in the backyard, transformed and destroyed by dirt, insects, and the elements. Growing up I had a veritable forest of a back yard (at least to my child self), and plenty of toys ended up wayward. This narrative of the lost toys becoming their own creatures when abandoned in nature fits with the "after us" apocalypse of Ray Bradbury's future house. So I think the "toy" connection in our projects can remain. I think the project is still kind of about toys anyway; as the "bug" concept only went so far in removing the powerful "plaything" connections inherent in the toys we used.
I do not want to get too far away from this, as I think it is creepy and uncanny in exactly the manner this "class collaborative" desires. A backyard where the children's lost electronic toys have merged with their natural surrounding; a graveyard writhing with plastic zombies. A marriage of culture, consumerism and technology with the natural world. While other peoples projects focus on merging electronic processes with bodily ones (the wind sensor) or emotions (the heartbeat, rangefinder hats) or giving human qualities to objects (obi and dragens smart house) our project focuses on the intersections between "wild" nature and cast-off technology. I think it has an important place in the "smart house:" our installation can express the potential of technology to alter environments that should be hostile towards it.
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