Secret Meeting is a work you share a room with. It’s the final evolution of the original sensor-driver network, where things started to move into the real world. It’s a study in shy, emergent choreography between two very different appendages.

The setup is stark black and white: a springy vertical "finger" sticking up from the bottom and a segmented chain of cubes that descends from the ceiling like a heavy, clumsy tongue. When they meet, they engage in a weird, rhythmic licking motion. The chain pushes the finger, the finger slingshots away, and the two scramble to find their rhythm again. It’s a playful, almost biological interaction that emerges entirely from the mechanical relationship between the two objects.

I used my own vocalizations for the audio again to give it that organic weight. The finger has a bumbling, bobbing sound as it wobbles, while the chain has a wetter, "slurpee" quality. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a clumsy mechanical dance or something much more suggestive. Take your pick.

The "secret" part of the work is its sensitivity. This was where my interest in Braitenberg and analog computing really hit the real world. I wired the system to a PIR motion sensor—the kind of cheap sensor you’d find in a security light. The logic is dead simple: if the system detects a disturbance, the meeting ends. The chain recedes into the ceiling, the finger goes stiff, and the room goes silent.


When I installed this in a gallery, it forced a specific kind of behavior on the audience. If you aren't patient, you walk in, see a static image, and leave. You have to practice a form of "analog patience"—standing perfectly still until the system trusts you aren't a threat. Only then will it begin its private, bumbling dance again.

This work was the major pivot toward the Powder of Life framework because it integrated environmental sensors into the logic of the sculpture. It proved that you don't need a complex "AI brain" to create a social boundary; you just need a sensor, a motor, and a bit of a shy attitude. It stands as a counterbalance to the "always-on" nature of modern technology—a reminder that some systems only reveal themselves when we give them the space to be alone.