RECURSIVE REALITY

Recursive Reality explores the loop between perception and surveillance, reality and absence. The installation features two main scenes: a pointcloud space that mimics reality but dissolves and rebuilds with the subject’s movement, and a dark void where a single blinking eye appears, mirroring the blinking speed of the observer. Projected onto sheer organza, the barrier between reality and illusion is blurred. To detect the eye, the audience must cross the “wall” and come into direct contact with the technological construction of reality itself — the camera, computer, and TouchDesigner network. Each gaze triggers its counterpart: when you peek at the “secret,” you look at yourself; when you turn to search for who is watching, reality reconstructs. The work frames supervision as recursion, collapsing the boundary between watcher and watched, and revealing reality as a fragile mimicry sustained by attention.

RECURSIVE REALITY 1.0

This is the ideal version.
However, the complex reflections of light in the space made accurate tracking difficult, and the system did not fully function as intended.

RECURSIVE REALITY 2.0

As a spatial compensation, I removed the fabric element and projected directly onto a framed wall in the studio. In this version, the details are much more clear, although the spot light element is still extremely faint. The blinking scene is triggered when the observer comes too close to the setup.

(White noise is intentionally included.)

Conceptual / technical Processes

I was inspired by Boris Acket’s installations, where he uses fabric as a medium to visualize the invisibles like wind. The interaction between space, nature, and technology created an intriguing tension, especially in its unpredictability.

This project started by installing the fabric and experimenting with different light sources, looking for a balance where the projection remained visible while still bright enough for the subject to be accurately tracked. Ultimately, I had to accept that the reflective light in the space, it was impossible to reliably capture the moving subject.

One aspect that became less prominent in the installation due to technological difficulty was the torch element. The wrist‑tracking data was inconsistent, so I initially added a secondary switch to activate or deactivate tracking based on hand detection. This worked well during early testing, but at full scale the hand was inevitably always in frame, producing messy data. My intention was for the torch to change size along the z‑axis, simulating the experience of holding it in real life, but this further disrupted the tracking and ended up complicating the interaction.

The eye‑tracking ended up working surprisingly well. I masked a shape onto an eye that inverted with each blink. The on‑screen eye mirrored the observer’s blinking speed, reintroducing the theme of surveillance and perception.

Process Documentation / User Testing