Borrowed
senses.

A lab for biomaterials, artistic exploration and regenerative design, founded with Naysa Andrade, Tom Longmate, Erick Allende, Nina Bjørkendal and Henriette Hultmann.

The work centres on the riverbed of the Otra in southern Norway, and on one plant in particular: krypsiv, Juncus bulbosus, which has choked the rivers of the south for decades. It mats the riverbed, crowds out native species and ruins spawning grounds; where it is cleared, it is usually just dumped. The lab treats it as a material instead.

Harvested krypsiv is dried, frozen, chopped and boiled into paper and bioplastic, using methods drawn from old Korean and Japanese craft traditions so the result breaks down in nature rather than outlasting it. The aim is not a sustainable material but a regenerative one — something that gives back to the river it came from. An early prototype, a lamp shaped after a krypsiv seed, came out of that work.

The lab exhibited at Environmental Week in Kristiansand in 2025, and in 2026 took part in the Regenerative Design MA exhibition at Central Saint Martins in London. A library of biomaterials is being established at the University of Agder.

That exhibition was held in memory of our member Tom Longmate, who died in 2026.

Founded with

Naysa Andrade, Tom Longmate, Erick Allende, Nina Bjørkendal, Henriette Hultmann

Focus

Biomaterials, artistic exploration, regenerative design

Site

The riverbed of the Otra, southern Norway

Material

Krypsiv (Juncus bulbosus) — paper, bioplastic

Exhibited

Environmental Week, Kristiansand, 2025; Regenerative Design MA, Central Saint Martins, London, 2026

Flumen Labs Agder fylkeskommune

An immersive installation made with Laura Christina B. Vallenes and Alma Eik, and reworked across four years into three different forms.

It was first shown with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra at Kilden, in collaboration with Kunstsilo — the work playing as a visual frame around the orchestra rather than as a piece on its own. The programme was curated by Jan Bang, and Artscapes appeared alongside digitised works by Reidar Aulie from Kunstsilo's opening exhibition. It was later rebuilt as an interactive immersive experience, and then again as a public installation for the Kristiansand Light Festival, where it met an audience walking past rather than one seated in a hall.

Made with

Laura Christina B. Vallenes, Alma Eik

Premiere

Kilden, with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra

Programme curated by

Jan Bang

Shown alongside

Digitised works by Reidar Aulie, Kunstsilo opening exhibition

Later shown

Interactive immersive experience; public installation, Kristiansand Light Festival

Scandinavia's first digital NFT gallery, founded with Peder Haugfos and hosted entirely online during the pandemic.

With physical galleries closed, the exhibition space moved into the browser and the metaverse. Nifrost curated Scandinavian NFT artists and connected them to an audience through virtual exhibitions, auctions and events — a gallery with no address, open from anywhere.

The gallery was covered by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Estonia.

Founded with

Peder Haugfos

Format

Virtual gallery, exhibitions and auctions

Focus

Scandinavian NFT artists

Graphic design

Even Suseg

Nifrost

The cover was made by 3D scanning the band members and turning them into particle systems. Following the title, the portraits dissolve into stars and re-form as new constellations.

The work was produced in Unity 3D, which let the designs be generated in real time rather than composited frame by frame.

The band is based in Bergen and the design was made in São Paulo. The distance ruled out a scanning session, so the models were reconstructed by photogrammetry from photographs the band took themselves.

Capture

Photogrammetry from the band's own photographs

Built in

Unity 3D, generated in real time

Format

Vinyl sleeve and gatefold spreads

Released

15 February 2019

SKAAR — Feed Me to the Stars

A journey from the roots to the canopy of a virtual sequoia, where virtual reality is used to make the invisible visible. You watch water travel from the roots out to the branches — a process that takes days in the tree, compressed here into minutes.

The piece was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, where it won the Storyscapes Award. During the festival a scent device was used for the first time, letting visitors smell the forest and the tree itself.

I worked on the design of the sculptural centrepiece and the openings in the trunk that visitors place their heads into. The sculpture gives four people at a time a more intimate space in which to try the installation, and hides and protects all the technical equipment.

Its outer layers are foam, flocked to give a soft, tactile surface that heightens the experience of the headset.

Role

Sculptural centrepiece, trunk openings

Material

Flocked foam over structure

Capacity

Four visitors at a time

Award

Storyscapes Award, Tribeca Film Festival

Marshmallow Laser Feast Other Fabrications

Here we imagine what an urban palimpsest can be in the digital age. Using 3D scanning and virtual reality, our project records personal stories and local histories, layering them over the city at a 1:1 scale.

Building this collective memory matters most in areas undergoing dramatic redevelopment. Our first initiative, The Camden Palimpsest, takes the UK High Speed Rail 2 project as a case study. It carries the stories of Camden residents — some of whom will lose their homes and workplaces — and explores how their lives will be transformed.

The virtual Palimpsests aim at more inclusive planning practice, using emerging technology to put communities, governments and developers directly in conversation. They also become historical documents, digitally recording spaces and stories that might otherwise be lost.

Created with John Russell Beaumont and Takashi Torisu at the Interactive Architecture Lab, The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL). Supervised by Ruairi Glynn and Vincent Huyghe.

Capture

3D scanning at 1:1 scale

Medium

Virtual reality

Case study

HS2, Camden

Lab

Interactive Architecture Lab, The Bartlett, UCL

Interactive Architecture Lab Wired The Guardian Designboom Creative Applications Fabbula

An installation investigating how bats locate space, combining 3D printed bat ears with binaural microphones and ultrasound so that you explore your environment through sound.

The ears were based on CT scans of bats, sculpted in ZBrush and 3D printed with SLS technology. They sit on a flocked black casing housing an amplifier and a distance sensor, suspended on a branch so the listener can hear from a distance. Their shape spatialises the microphones into a binaural three dimensional effect, letting the listener sense three dimensional space through sound in real time.

A continuation of In the Eyes of the Animal, exploring the sensory world of animals through technology and art. Made in collaboration with sound artist Antoine Bertin and creative director Barney Steel of Marshmallow Laser Feast.

Ears

CT scans, sculpted in ZBrush

Print

SLS nylon, flocked casing

Housing

Amplifier, distance sensor, branch mount

Shown

Bluedot Festival, Jodrell Bank

Bluedot Festival Marshmallow Laser Feast Antoine Bertin