The moss clock is only allowed to tick, when an animal walks by, a hand moves over or a bird passes the moss. This way only encountering a living being triggers the moss clock’s next phase on a time line. Similar to the growth of Shiitake mushrooms, interaction instigates time to elapse. The clock itself is growing, expanding and moldering during the exhibition.

Moss Clock
a living sensor
The moss sensor consists of round wooden frames with a diameter of 5- 15 centimeter. The frames are
lazor cut and fit together in shape, this way they are individual modules that can be arranged in different
forms and combinations. In each wooden frame moss is growing. Underneath the moss there is
aluminium foil connected to an Arduino Microcontroller. The foil serves as a capacitor sensor and senses
distance. The Arduino Microcontroller sends data via Ethernet to the TIK server when it receives analog
input.
The user can interact with the moss by changing the distance to the moss frames, even touching and
pressing the moss. This interaction changes the input to the sensor and triggers higher analog values to
be sent to the microcontroller. Through the change in values the clock ticks faster. The growing
organisms of moss need to be watered regularly in order to function as sensors. If there is demand the
moss clock can be designed to accept people stepping on the moss with their bare feet.
The clock can also be put into an environmental context, for example wood or urban spaces, which will
influence the rhythm of tiks per day.

http://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/
http://deothering.wordpress.com/

bio
Stefanie Wuschitz is a researcher, lecturer and artist based in Vienna. After graduating with honors from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (2006) and completing her masters at New York University’s ITP program (2008) in the United States, Wuschitz spent a year at HUMlab in Sweden working as a digital art fellow and organizing the Eclectic Tech Carnival 2009. She founded the feminist hackerspace Miss Baltazar’s Laboratory, a network and series of workshop sessions for women artists to share their knowledge and open source skills. Her work was exhibited internationally and Miss Baltazar's Laboratory was invited to several festivals and conferences around the world. Among others Harvestworks NYC (2010), Ars Electronica (2010), Transmediale (2011), Taipei Artist Village (2011), Coded Cultures (2011), TEDx (2011), Platform 4 (2011), Frankfurter Kunstverein (2012).