An interactive art installation questioning how we memorialize and archive people.
Art Installation, Interactive Documentary
2026
Description
Interactive art exhibition designed for interaction with thousands of visitors at the PULSE exhibition at the Jepson Center / Telfair Museums.
Artist Statement
Growing up, my church took a group photograph of attending families every Easter. The walls of the church are lined with decades of these photos. Beneath each framed photo was a hand-drawn sketch my pawpaw would make. Before he passed away, he meticulously drew each person’s silhouette and numbered their head to indicate their name in a numbered legend sheet.
In this piece, I recreated this analogue approach to memorialization with real-time computer vision and machine learning to interrogate how contemporary memory-making technologies simultaneously honor and erase us—flattening identity while also allowing it to persist beyond our physical presence.
Pose in front of this piece to create a numbered group photo, and scan the QR code to save your photo and preserve the record of your visit and the people you shared it with.
In this piece, I recreated this analogue approach to memorialization with real-time computer vision and machine learning to interrogate how contemporary memory-making technologies simultaneously honor and erase us—flattening identity while also allowing it to persist beyond our physical presence.
Pose in front of this piece to create a numbered group photo, and scan the QR code to save your photo and preserve the record of your visit and the people you shared it with.
Research
This installation is based on my grandfather's practice of memorializing the attendees of my childhood church. I studied his pencil drawn technique and recreated it digitally.
The work applies a speculative documentary practice to interactive design.
Interaction
The viewer approaches the photo frame and is labeled automatically with a number. The installation takes a photo of them, which the viewer can then download by scanning a QR code and downloading the image.
Process
Tools
TouchDesigner for real-time visualizationMedia Pipe for AI image recognition of viewers
Google Drive for storing photos for viewers to download
Stages
Created a test version in TouchDesigner using a depth camera. The number labeling did not place properly.
Switched to using webcam visuals processed by the MediaPipe plugin for TouchDesigner where numbers were properly assigned.
Recreated the TouchDesigner flow to sequentially number multiple people rather than just one.
Referenced photos of my grandfather's work to recreate the visual style.Installed at the museum and made final modifications.
Reflection
This project was created for an exhibition with varies types of visitors and large groups. Thematically, the piece affords quick, fun interaction as well as thoughtful reflection to meet the needs of this audience.
Through the piece, visitors participate in their own memorialization and must grapple with the ways in which their identities are stripped, visually, by how the piece translates their image into a silhouette.
In the future, the exhibition would function better with a higher quality facial recognition model and a DSLR camera rather than a webcam, as it sometimes struggled to properly visualize the visitors.