Blender, TouchDesigner, Pixera
Life Within
Interactive projected installation of a 3D animation, created for a public class showcase, inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's 1986 essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.
My first projection mapping project inspired by The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986) by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which the author frames the development of technology as devices to sustain life, or “Life Stories,” rather than as tools to control or threaten life, or “Killer Stories.”
The installation creates an illusion of a box containing a living plant, representing life, despite being projected onto a flat surface. I modeled and animated the flowering plant Blender, then used a webcam and MediaPipe hand tracking in TouchDesigner to allow the audience to interact with the projection through their movements.
As participants engage with the piece, the plant responds in real time, encouraging reflection on the environmental systems that surround our lives and the ways technology can shape our relationship with them. Through projection, animation, and interaction, the work explores themes of growth, resilience, and impacts of human-technological activities.
Still from the showcase installation. The iPad display served as the placard for the piece.
Left: Pixera computer system for mapping and spatial alignment. Right: TouchDesigner for processing real-time input & exporting live animation feed.
Demonstration of the MediaPipe hand_tracking tox. Visualizes hand landmarks and gesture detection data used for interaction.
Timelapse of the interactive animation loop in Blender.
Documentation for the physical and technological installation of the project.
Early concept storyboard of a looping animation in Procreate.