Geek-Machine
Exhibition
Béton Salon - 2024
Geek-Machine is an interactive sculpture that translates competitive gaming data into physical and environmental responses. Using the Riot Games API, gameplay events trigger water, light and sound, connecting digital performance to the care of a living plant.
Overview
The installation combines a 3D-printed sculpture, Raspberry Pi and a living plant. The system continuously retrieves the player's recent League of Legends matches and interprets specific events as physical actions. A victory triggers irrigation, while enemy kills produce light and sound responses. The plant is not simply a passive recipient: its soil moisture determines whether irrigation is allowed, introducing a biological constraint into an otherwise algorithmic system.
Interactive UI for BPM Scanning & Aura Generation
technical process
A Raspberry Pi runs a Python script that periodically queries the Riot Games API and checks the player's 20 most recent matches. New match data is parsed and classified according to events such as wins and kills. The resulting events are converted into GPIO signals controlling a water pump, LEDs and audio playback. A soil-moisture sensor continuously monitors the plant and can block irrigation when the soil is already sufficiently wet. The entire system runs locally on the Raspberry Pi without an external server.
Enemy kills trigger a growling sound through the speakers, while victories activate the water pump and LED for one second.
Closing note
Geek-Machine explores how abstract digital behaviour can acquire physical consequences. By transforming gameplay statistics into acts of watering, light and sound, the project creates a speculative relationship between competitive performance and ecological care. The plant ultimately introduces something the game cannot control: a biological condition that can interrupt the logic of the system.
Python
Raspberry Pi
API
Moisture Sensor
3D Printing
Interactive / R&D
