Unwhorl

Unwhorl is an artwork built in collaboration with artist Sam Lavigne. Built in JavaScript, the app turns any touchscreen device into a real-time interactive plane for garden snails. It works by converting the input from snail gestures into sketches and sounds, and by returning vibrational outputs. Snails that climb onto an Unwhorl interface can make music and sketches, collaboratively with other snails, or humans, across time and space.

Responding to gestures of the snail, the app also produces durational artworks: dot-line drawings, dot-line drawing films if the screen is being recorded, and music in both live and recorded formats. The signals, broadcast in real time online, allow anyone anywhere in the world into the snails’ creative process. The outputs produced by snails become aesthetically legible and interpretable with sustained attention.