BEYOND THE VISIBLE

Data Spirits

Mixed-reality (MR) is changing the way we understand the world around us by giving users the ability to alter anything they see. With this project, Data Spirits, I hope to explore how we can use creativity and MR to evoke a new understanding of the spaces around us. Visualising previously invisible data to the naked eye with the help of sensors. Seeing the invisible opens up creative opportunities to tell stories and reimagine the world with fresh ‘eyes’.

The work takes inspiration from the ancient practice of creating spirits to interpret the unexplainable. I apply this ancient practice to create new age spirits out of live data. Merging the digital and physical space to create a mixed reality. These spirits slowly shift and alter depending on environmental changes in the room, bringing form to the invisible world around us that we can’t see. The work invites the viewer to consider the different realities that exist within a space.

Research

At Erasmus University, for my thesis paper, I investigated how individuals navigate augmentation. Through interviews in mixed reality, findings emerged that we experience augmentation as a journey with its own rules and mechanics. Interviewees developed new relationships with their digitally augmented versions of their room, learning that many versions of one space exist. It seems, that we are equiped for a future where we can exist in several spaces at once.

Design/Dev

Data Spirits come to life through a series of sensors at the back of the screen. Live data is transformed into a visual flock via a processing script on the Raspberry Pi. Each data point influences the spirit in its own unique way, resulting in changes highly dependent on the artwork's environmental conditions. New data can easily be added with endless possibilities for customisation.

Behind the Scenes

Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way, it was such a joy to research and experiment. Ps. Happy to send the research paper <3