Larry is back again in Steve's laboratory.

The computer-interfaced "pin-screens", Steve has made are rectangular and generally flat, a little smaller than a briefcase. They are mounted on tripod-like stands. Cables connect the pin- screens to computers in the lab. Steve has guided Larry to the screens. Larry is getting oriented.

Steve goes to the computer console and the demo begins.

Larry puts his hand against one of the screens and the other screen moves to assume the convex shape of his hand imprint. The screen is obviously made of metal but the metal gives when pressure is put on it, the way thick mercury would, or metallic Jell-o. The satiny surface looks like it is made of tiny metal beads, each the thickness of a rounded sewing needle. The cells can also emit light. The region of the device which is reproducing the shape of Larry's left hand is also assuming the color of his skin.

Larry places his hand on the other screen. Standing with his arms spread apart , he is feeling the images of his opposite hands simultaneously on opposite sides of him. He reacts physically to the strange, disembodied sensation.

Steve begins to explain how he has constructed the device, "I am mass-producing tiny processor/motor elements from Silicon, each the size of a grain of sand, which can function together like a programmable 'organic colony'. The structure is entirely self- organizing. The only variables are the size of the base pad and the number of elements installed on it.

"It's really remarkable. My printer turns out a sheet of ten-thousand cells in about a minute. And the raw material is Silicon. It's essentially sand. The pads you are touching have about a million cells on them.

"The 'in-the-round' device is behind you. It has over ten million cells."

Behind Larry is cubic form on a table -- much larger than the screens, but it has the same surface quality.

Steve continues, "I think you'll find that the low-profile device is better for reading text and 2-d graphics, like your Braille pad, but for a greater range of depth, you need a bulkier device."

Steve prepares to demonstrate a 3-D computer "animation" -- projecting a 3-D scientific visualization into the "colony" device.

Larry turns, approaches it and feels the surface.

Steve warns, "OK, watch out now -- it's going to animate." Larry pulls his hands back.

Steve continues, "It is sensitive enough to touch so that it will not damage itself, but I'm not entirely sure that this prototype is absolutely safe to touch while it is animating."

The device suddenly morphs from a cube into a 3-D plot of the Riemann Zeta function. It is a fantastic, canyon-like smooth mathematical terrain. The surface also changes color to display a computer-generated topographic gradation in 3-D.

Steve gives the 'all-clear', "OK, it's stopped now."

Larry, feeling the new form, smiles, "Why... It's the primes!"

After Larry has explored the form thoroughly, Steve quits the current program. He says, "I have made another demonstration program you might find amusing." Steve starts another program.

Larry has not moved his hands away, but the device is suddenly "aware" of the presence of his hands.

The surface begins to engulf Larry's left hand. As it makes contact, color flows from his hand across the surface of the device -- the color map looks like the tendrils of plasma in Steve's sculpture. Swirls of electric blue-pink -- like Redferns description of visualized human aura.

Steve, however, seems more involved with the technical aspects of the machine and the demo at hand, and he doesn't seem to notice the color changes. He tells Larry, "The device is digitizing your hand in real-time by contact. The cells are like combined nerve and muscle cells of an electronic blob creature. They communicate optically within the structure."

As one part of the structure is engulfing Larry's hand, a hand shape begins to grow out of another part of the structure. The duplicate hand moves with the movements of Larry's real hand.

Steve directs Larry, "There is a dynamic, 3-D projection of your hand to your right."

Again, Larry explores his 'teleported' hand, in-the-round, this time.

Steve continues, "The cells detect not only touch, but light, heat and electrical impulses. I think it could work as a hi-res EKG or EEG if the bio-medical people would try it out. Maybe you could help me chalk up some data say, maybe next week?"

Larry says, "Oh, sorry, not next week. It looks as though I am going to be traveling to a Techno-Art conference in San Francisco next week."

"More of the stuff that was at your girlfriend's Cafe?" Steve asks.

"Yeah," Larry replies, "It's called the Inter-Symposium on Electronic Art. It's not really my thing, but Theo wanted me to go and collect documentation for her."

Steve is optimistic, "We could still do it remotely, they interface to any PC."

Larry is not sure, "This is so new. Are you sure you could part with it for a whole week?"

Steve replies, "I have ample resources to make several of these, I really want to get going on this, I don't know when they are going to okay me for MARS Project and I don't know how much notice they'll give me before I go. I was so into the laser sintering for so long and now with this," Steve holds up another metal screen, "I feel like I want to go a whole new direction."

"Well, sure," Larry says, taking the screen from Steve's hands. "It feels about the size that would fit in my bag."

Steve is delighted, "Great, Thanks. Here, take two," he says.

Copyright 2000 Stewart Dickson and Rebecka Dickson