Shanghai
Projection Mapping / Interactive Performance Art
Role: Performer
Medium: Projection Mapping, Live Performance, Interactive Media
See You in a Higher Dimension is an interactive performance exploring the relationship between physical presence, digital representation, and mediated communication.
The work creates an unusual encounter between two performers who occupy the same physical environment but cannot directly see each other. A live camera captures one performer and projects their image onto a translucent screen, creating a digital representation that becomes the only way the performers can perceive each other.
Separated by the projection surface, the performers interact with each other's projected presence rather than their physical bodies. The result is a performance where human connection is mediated entirely through technology.
The project investigates:
If two people interact only through digital representations of each other, where does the "real" presence exist — in the physical body, the projected image, or the interaction between them?
The project explores the changing relationship between human presence and technological mediation.
In ordinary communication, seeing another person provides immediate physical confirmation of their existence. However, in See You in a Higher Dimension, this relationship is disrupted.
The performers are physically close but perceptually separated.
They share the same space but experience different realities.
The projected image becomes a third space between them — neither completely physical nor completely digital.
The work examines:
• The distance created by technology even when people are physically near
• How digital representations influence our understanding of others
• The difference between seeing a person and experiencing their presence
• How technology creates new forms of intimacy and separation
The performance consists of three interconnected elements:
Physical Performer
The performer exists behind the projection surface and interacts with the projected image without seeing the actual visual output.
Live Capture System
A camera records the performer and transfers their movement into a digital image.
Projection Environment
The image is projected onto a translucent screen, creating a shared space where physical movement and digital representation overlap.
The screen becomes a boundary between two realities — allowing connection while maintaining separation.
A central element of the performance is that I interacted with the projection without being able to see it.
Because I was positioned behind the translucent projection surface, I experienced the performance through sound, spatial awareness, and physical intuition rather than direct visual feedback.
This created a unique design condition:
The performer must respond to an environment they cannot fully perceive.
The experience challenges the assumption that interaction requires complete information. Instead, it explores how humans adapt when navigating partially visible systems.
The performance uses projection mapping and live video transmission to create a real-time relationship between physical movement and digital imagery.
The technical process includes:
Live Camera Capture
A camera records the performer’s movement and transforms their physical presence into a digital image.
Projection Mapping
The captured image is projected onto a translucent plastic screen, creating the appearance of a floating or holographic figure.
Spatial Interaction
The performers respond to projected images rather than direct physical bodies, creating an interaction between:
Human Movement → Digital Representation → Perceived Presence
The technological system becomes an invisible mediator shaping how the performers communicate.
Participating in See You in a Higher Dimension changed my understanding of the designer's relationship with interactive systems.
Unlike traditional design processes where the creator controls the final experience, this performance placed me inside the system as a participant. I was required to experience the limitations, uncertainties, and unexpected behaviors produced by the technology.
The inability to see the projection created a gap between intention and perception. This gap became part of the artwork itself.
The project revealed that interactive experiences are not only created through designed outputs, but also through the relationship between human perception, technological constraints, and invisible systems.
This project became an early exploration of questions that continue throughout my interactive media practice:
How do people understand experiences when part of the system remains invisible?
How does technology shape our perception of presence and reality?
These questions later developed into my research on generative systems, where users interact with worlds created through processes they cannot fully observe or control.
While this project examines a human presence transformed through projection, my current research extends the question toward AI-generated environments:
When a system begins creating parts of a world that humans experience, how do we understand authorship, ownership, and trust?
Projection Mapping
Live Video Capture
Interactive Performance
Media Installation
Embodied Interaction
