Interactive installation (2024)

Concept

Soliton is an interactive installation in which visitors generate emerging Turing patterns with their own gestures.
Using real-time pose estimation, bodily movement is translated into the initial conditions of a reaction–diffusion system.

The result is a living digital surface — a computational painting that continuously reorganizes itself as viewers shift their weight, extend a hand, or change posture.

The work explores embodied generative systems: how human presence can modulate algorithmic behavior, and how biological pattern formation can become a performative medium.

The piece translates solitons — persistent, localized wave packets — into a gestural grammar: each movement seeds a disturbance that either dissolves, collides, or stabilizes into a new form.

Interaction

Visitors step into a minimal space with a camera and projection surface. Their movement is captured in real time and mapped to the parameters of the RD system:

• Gesture = pattern initiation
• Movement speed = reaction rate
• Body scale = diffusion spread
• Orientation = boundary disruption

The installation invites slow, exploratory motion — people often discover that tiny movements produce the richest textures.

Images & Documentation

Technical Overview

• Pose-estimation via Raspberry Pi 5 + camera module
• Custom RD engine written in p5.js
• Real-time modulation of reaction parameters from skeletal data
• Projection on vertical wall, 2m–3m width
• Iteration frequency ~25–45 FPS depending on user activity

The system is compact, portable, and easy to deploy in public or festival settings.

Reflection

Soliton aims to slow people down. Visitors often begin with large, expressive gestures, then gradually shift to micro-movements as they discover how sensitive the system is.

This creates a conversation between presence and computation — an introspective relation between body and algorithm.

Future versions explore multi-user interaction and expanded RD grammars.

Exhibition History

• Radar New Media Art Festival, Bucharest, 2024