Welcome to PLIX (In)visible Self! What technologies and techniques can we use to build our inward-looking senses and enhance everyday skills for personal growth?
🥰 Ages 8+ 🕐 1–1.5 Hours 👩👧👦 up to 12 Participants 🍎 1–2 Facilitators 🎨 Craft Materials
This activity centers around building and speculating tools for revealing invisible parts of ourselves: our breath, our heartbeat, and other body rhythms. Here, “tools” means anything from simple electronics sensors to programmed circuits to mechanically activated paper constructions!
Get Inspiration from the PLIX Community
by the PLIX team
Song of Myself—a mason jar filled with bells that make sound when the user is jittery or nervous, creating an auditory way to express the mind-body connection.
by the PLIX team / Allie Affinito, NYPL
A circuit that tracks nerves/nervousness via tapping (using a Makey Makey coded with Scratch). When tapped enough times, the device tells its user to take a mental break from work (image: Allie Affinito, NYPL)!
by the PLIX team
Aura Brain Map Speculation—a brainstorm collage of a future, color-based MRI machine for detecting emotion and mood (image: Paige Normandin).
by the PLIX team
Texture Zoo—a desktop collection of different textures, made from recycled objects, that can help change the change of its user depending on which texture they touch.
by the PLIX team
A simple paper wearable that helps its user connect their mood to their daily water intake!
Prompts from PLIX
PLIX Community Remixes
Capture electrodermal activity (EDA) or other data with a micro:bit, Arduino, FLORA, or other microcontroller, and use the data to make art, control a game, or “control” your mood.
Check out more examples and experiences from other librarians on the PLIX Forum (In)visible Self space
In(visible) Self Book Connections
Materials
Supply Kit
Supplementary Resources
PLIX zines are a supplementary resource for patrons and librarians to refer to. Use our guide to cut and assemble them.
Love our zine, but it doesn’t fit your adaptation of the activity? Remix our zine with this Google Slides template!
Facilitation
Playtest and Plan
Remember: There’s no one right way to prepare for a workshop. Use these steps as a loose guideline for planning to run this activity.
- Choose one of our prompts, or come up with a prompt that suits your library community. Our activity guides are for getting you started—feel free to change or create new design elements to suit your local community! All PLIX activity guides are designed for a minimum of 1–2 facilitators
- Gather materials and print out the zine.
- Make an example project. Try it out with friends and colleagues. Thoughtfully incomplete, good examples feature a variety of approaches and starting points. Use them to inspire learners to make something uniquely their own. Guide to Making Activity Examples →
- Try the activity with your patrons. Set a date and time. Easily promote your workshop with our editable (In)visible Self flyer template →
- Populate your workshop space with diverse example projects. Create and play together!
- Reflect on what you’ve done and consider doing a remix!
Did you come up with new prompts? Share your ideas with your peers on the PLIX Forum. Try our Remix Share-Out template if you’d like us to feature your remix!
Facilitation Tips
By design, this activity invites learners of all backgrounds to play with form and function. It is a very new set of tools and materials for most people, so make sure that there is enough material to accommodate participants as they get used to the new craft. When facilitating this activity, we encourage you to support a tinkering mindset.
into creative learning facilitation with our Self-Guided Mini Course. It’ll also help you get started running your first PLIX workshop.
About PLIX (In)visible Self
This activity was developed in collaboration with Media Lab graduate student Caitlin Morris, whose work focuses on developing new ways to understand how we can control our physical and emotional states.
Other ways to engage with the PLIX Inflatables program:
- Looking for some background music? Check out our PLIX (In)visible Self Playlist 🎶
- Questions? Ask them on the PLIX Discussion Forum 🙋♀️
- Share your experience running this activity on Twitter or Instagram and tag us @heyplix