INTERACTIVE ART · DARTMOUTH LIBRARIES
DIGITAL EXQUISITE CORPSE
A playful touchscreen installation that turns open-access imagery into unexpected collage creatures—and gives visitors a little monster to take home.
CREATIVE CODING INTERACTION DESIGN OPEN ACCESS
Overview
UX ENGINEER · 5 MONTHS
For International Open Access Week 2025, I designed and developed the experience with Dartmouth Libraries’ Scholarly Publishing team and Exhibits and Graphic Arts Designer. The installation invited spontaneous play in Baker-Berry Library.
FIGMA · HTML · CSS · JAVASCRIPT · FIREBASE · ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE
An Invitation to Play
How might open access feel inviting beyond a talk or a panel? I reimagined Exquisite Corpse as a hands-on encounter with remixing, creativity, and shared knowledge.
Visitors cycled independently through heads, bodies, and legs, then combined their choices into a one-of-a-kind creature. Image credits and a QR code connected the finished collage to its sources and a saved copy.
Original project film: a world of unexpected combinations.
Designing the Game
I explored the flow in Figma, then built the interface in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Firebase. A minimal layout kept the imagery at the center of the experience.
Testing with students and library staff led to a larger canvas, more varied image choices, improved randomization, and selections that persisted between sections.
Three independent selections: head, body, and legs.
A simpler flow, clearer choices, and a playful composite.
From Screen to Sticker
A physical souvenir made the digital experience more memorable. Visitors could save their creations by QR code, and I used a thermal printer’s companion app to print their monsters as stickers throughout the week.
The result brought playful image-making into an everyday library setting, connecting a moment of creative participation with something visitors could carry away.
Preparing the collage in the printer’s companion app.
The thermal printer used for the sticker souvenirs.
The Monsters Out in the World
A digital collage becomes a sticker.
Unexpected characters, recombined.
Another playful combination.
A little monster finds a home.