GroveOS
GroveOS is a tactile, interactive installation built around a mysterious, anachronistic workstation. Visitors are invited to explore its buttons, knobs, and glowing CRT terminal, only to discover that each action draws them deeper into a surreal, recursive system that resists escape
Concept and Artistic Approach
GroveOS is an exploration of loops: in physics, technology, and in ourselves. The installation is a playful interface at the surface: a desk filled with vintage hardware, dials, and switches that click and hum with a raw physicality. The terminal invites the participant to navigate a strange OS, triggering lights, radio channels, a flickering oscilloscope, and a mysterious shifting, luminous liquid.
But for the participant that pays attention, the more they engage, the more they begin to sense a cycle. Menus repeat. Glitches accumulate. The system remembers their name. The radio loops shorten. Each reboot starts more haunted than the last.
At the heart of GroveOS lies a proposition:
We live in loops. Days, seasons, years, personal habits, cultural narratives, inter-generational trauma, historical repetition. The only freedom is awareness.
The system continues to loop until one elusive action is taken: selecting "Acknowledge" in a broken app labeled History. Only then can the cycle evolve.
By disguising reflection inside play, GroveOS invites participants to notice their patterns and perhaps, to begin steering them.
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Terminal: an 1982 original TI99/4A converted to a terminal using an Arduino Due to interface with the keyboard, and a Raspberry Pi 4B to emulate an old-time terminal using vintage effects. Connected to a CRT monitor, because of course.
Mystical Potion: a magnetic stirrer triggered by the Pi using a relay activates mica powder in a water+alcohol mixture
Oscilloscope: a gutted 1973 Heathkit IO-102 controlled by its own Raspberry Pi. An LCD screen replaces the original CRT. Connected to the terminal Pi via an RJ45 cable.
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GroveOS has been presented to private gatherings and events.