Chameleon Effect: We collaborated on our Camouflage project to turn an old Oxford shirt into an unassuming house plant.

The inspiration behind this idea was if a person was running away from someone, they could have a costume that would help them quickly blend into their surroundings, which, in our case was a wall of plants. We liked the green striped material of our shirt and used this to inform our decisions. We also added additional shimmery fabric to the underside of our leaves to give the plant more personality.

This initial video shows the overall movement of the transformation using a combination of V-Fold and Tendon mechanism and bike cable. Marieke first straightened her body from slumped position to upright position to activate the initial motion of leaves rising upward. Then she raised and bend her left arm to help give a more detailed curling effect.

Our second video is a close up of the underside of the leaf to show off its pretty contrasting color. The leaves were rigged with the rigid V-Fold and tendon mechanism. The bike cable was then attached to the tendons of the leaves to draw them into a raised curling position.