This Strange Display Is Giving Lady Cassandra Vibes

Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 is one of Doctor Who’s most memorable characters. If that name isn’t ringing a bell, then just picture a sheet of human skin, complete with a face, stretched out onto a metal frame. The visual is disturbing, to say the least. But maker Jenni Hutson must have found Lady Cassandra’s appearance to be inspiring, because she created this strange 2.5D “shape display” called SILICONE DREAM.

When inactive, SILICONE DREAM looks like a big square piece of skin filling an aluminum frame about two and a half feet to a side. It is very reminiscent of Lady Cassandra, though that may not have been intentional on Hutson’s part. When it is active, it looks like that, but moving and undulating in a way that will be either fascinating or deeply troubling, depending on your particular sensibilities and sensitivities.

SILICONE DREAM is a piece of art and conveying information doesn’t seem to have been the point. In Hutson’s words, it “functions as a kinetic sculptural object” and was “designed for live collaboration with performing artists.” We think it may be most useful as a machine for terrifying children (and most adults), but we can’t deny that it is has a certain allure.

As the name suggests, the display is mostly a sheet of silicone. The machine displays shapes in that silicone by extending and retracting pins on the back. There are 16 of those pins in a 4×4 grid and so the resolution is low, but that is enough to create interesting shapes on the surface of the silicone sheet.

Each pin mechanism is 3D-printed and attached to the T-slot aluminum frame. The mechanism is similar to a rack-and-pinion and actuated by a small 55g hobby servo motor. The pinion has a large diameter to give the pin plenty of travel. A Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (2GB) controls those motors through an Adafruit Raspberry Pi Servo HAT.

The biggest challenge seems to have been fabricating that silicone sheet. It isn’t the kind of thing that is easy to find at a local Walmart, so Hutson designed a mold that can be 3D-printed in sections and then glued together to form one big watertight piece. A whole bunch of Smooth-On EcoFlex pourable silicone does the rest.

We still aren’t sure how to feel about SILICONE DREAM, but we can pretty much guarantee that it will make you feel something.