An interactive hand tracking project
Project Overview
A multi-screen interactive installation where the audience's hands become instruments. Using hand tracking via webcam, two-finger gestures control generative floral forms — L-system structures that grow, bloom, and respond in real time across an 8-screen cluster.
Timeline
Art Historical Context
The work situates itself within interactive new media art, where — as Ahmed (2018) writes — audience participation is not incidental but constitutive: the activity of engagement becomes the artwork itself. Three precedents are central:
Lucy Boyd-Wilson
Memories of Rain
Similar motion-responsive approach; differs in using webcam-based hand tracking vs. specialized kinetic hardware — more accessible, equally expressive.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Spectral Subjects
Both adapt to human presence. Lozano-Hemmer captures invisible heat; this work captures visible, intentional gesture — making participation explicit.
Chris Milk
The Treachery of Sanctuary
Multi-screen spatial immersion. Milk uses Kinect + Unity (representational 3D); this work uses TouchDesigner L-systems (abstract, generative, botanical).
Visual Development
The visual subject — hydrangea — was chosen for its direct etymology. The flower is the concept made literal: a water vessel, a cluster of small blooms forming one larger form, fragile and responsive. The challenge is translating this botanical logic into L-system grammar.
Process Documentations
