Toshio Iwai / Nintendo / 2005 / Japan For Nintendo DS Hand-Held Game Systems

Electroplankton was developed by noted digital media artist Toshio Iwai who describes the project as a “touchable media art game.”

Electroplankton offers a number of scenarios with ten different species of musical creatures (plankton), each with their own associated musical properties. By selecting and guiding the plankton using the DS’s touchscreen and microphone, the player creates, alters, and layers a pleasing variety of shifting electronic musical patterns. Iwai’s visual and musical inventiveness turns an existing hand-held gaming platform into a new kind of digital instrument that produces distinctive and appealing music and imagery. Iwai’s other recent invention, Tenuri-On, is a dedicated touchsensitive interactive musical device from Yamaha.