Bug BuilderQueensland Museum

Bug Builder is an interactive installation created by Inkahoots in collaboration with Queensland Museum entomologists. It enables visitors to build, customise and name their own ‘Frankenstein’ insects on touch screens and phones, and then see their inventions come to life, crawling and flying around the museum’s walls.

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on earth. They represent 80% of the planet’s described species, and its largest terrestrial biomass. Without insects the natural environment would collapse. And beyond insects’ instrumental role in ecosystem upkeep, they are remarkable, beautiful and mysterious. Witness tens of thousands of Thailand’s Mae Klong River fireflies synchronise their pulsing lights, or the tiny water boatman use its genitals to call louder than a passing freight train...

With Bug Builder participants can make over 4000 entomological combinations, and then customise them even further with a selection of colours, patterns and textures. The name they give their creature is translated to latin and appears as an intermittent label, helping identify their bug as it scurries and flutters amongst the other six-legged inventions.

Although the assembled bugs are creative fictions, they are built from body parts specific to a range of real insects, with corresponding realistic animated motion behaviours and fascinating stories.