Companions
2021
mobile app with environmental sensors for hospital wards
‘Companions’ creates a responsive digital garden where hospitalized viewers become cultivators through their presence. Commissioned for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital's greenhouse-inspired architecture, the work features five medicinal plants that form modern pharmaceuticals: poppy for painkillers, marigold for anti-cancer drugs, St. John's wort for antidepressants, digitalis for heart medication, and cornflower for eye remedies. These digital specimens respond to hospital environmental data—temperature, humidity, light, ambient noise—creating cycles of growth and decay that mirror subtle vitality within medical isolation. Patient movement, corridor conversations, and sunlight through windows nurture or stress the digital garden, transforming passive waiting into active cultivation. The installation reimagines clinical environments as living ecosystems where healing emerges from recognizing our participation in larger ecological systems, even within sterile institutional spaces.
Commissioned by CW+ Relax Digital Programme
sensor data engineering Prof. Lynne Baillie and Dr.Theodoros Georgiou, Heriot-Watt University Robotics Lab