Interactive Installation
2022

Tree trunks . LCD screens . 110° wide-angle 2.8mm lens webcam . plaster . concrete . cables
TouchDesigner
7” x 7” x 45”  .  7” x 9” x 22”

In a speculative future, nature and machine have merged into recombinant forms. Through pushing the boundaries between the natural and artificial, what are the possibilities for an augmented creation, and how may this hybrid form present itself in our everyday lives?

In the Blink of an Eye is a blend of a tree and machine existing in an urban environment as if they grew, assimilated and developed into a merged form. Taking the tree as a first-person perspective, the installation reflects and visualizes the presence and thinking of nature in urban space through the sculptural composition of tree, concrete, and LCD displays.

What does the world look like in the eyes of trees?

Grow up with the trees around my neighborhood. In their blink of an eye, the world has radically changed; we have grown older; and year after year, they stand still and quiet, like nothing has changed.

I wonder would the trees have always been watching us? A lot of times we as human beings focus too much on our ourselves. What is the perspective of the creatures around us? Thus I created this project to visualize the vision and perspective of the trees around us.

^{· what if ·}

Alternative co-existence form?

As the boundary between natural and artificial gets more and more blurry, how could nature and urban merge into recombinant forms instead of being isolated presences?

Spy in the Wild

_{2017 . Nature documentary . 2 seasons}

“...“Spy in the Wild” employs over 30 animatronic “spycams” disguised as animals to secretly record behavior in the wild. These spy cameras reveal animals as having emotions and behavior similar to humans – specifically, a capacity to love, grieve, deceive, cooperate, and invent.“
_{read more ︎︎︎}

The vision of trees

^{· seeing ·}
︎ We are making artificial creations to record the wild, the wild lives may have also been observing us.
︎ Trees are like the guardian of the city as stand in one place in the river of time. They have sensed a lot that happened around them.
︎ Some trees have eye-like patterns as if they are gazing at the world around them. The Quaking Aspens often appear to do self-amputation by dropping smaller branches that don’t receive enough sunlight and that leaves a scar on the trunk of the tree, so called “Aspen Eyes”.

The excess is abandoned, thus the upgrade gets revealed

^{· memorizing ·}
Tree rings are like the brain of a tree, it’s tightly related to its surrounding environment and changes. It provides a record of not only how old the tree is, but also what the weather was like during each year of the tree’s life.

It is an evidence of both the tree’s existence, and the change of the environment.

Technology as an augmentation of the tree

The concept of vision in plants suggests their ability to sense the surrounding via plant-specific ocelli(another term for simple eye). Although the evidence for eyelike structures in higher plants remains limited, it is growing.

If the trees connect with the surrounding environment, how could they develop along the river of time? What have they sensed?





Technology has been an significant part to augment human abilities and upgrade of urban life. In Embraced, LCD screens are embedded into a tree to construct an augmented creature. Emergent technology engages in the development and evolution of the eyes of the tree, and forms its memories. As if nature and urban grow, assimilate and develop together into a merged form.

The installation visualizes the “senses” and “memory” of the tree

Including a digital motion-sensitive eye that moves according to surrounding motions; a sound-reactive wheel that reflects the environmental sound and compose to a tree ring form; and a live camera that captures what the tree sees then process to form the memory of the tree(tree rings).

^{· iteration ·}
The choice of blue and the use of lines create the illusion of water flowing in the trees.

^{· interaction / technical support ·}
Sound-reaction, image capture, and visual effects are all designed and constructed in TouchDesigner. Connected with an external wide-angle camera to detect human figure and capture motions.

^{· wood carving and plastering ·}

^{· augmented tree 01 ·}
Eyes of the tree watch and observe the world around the them.
Its memory is continually constructed and formed by the live ambience sound, and visualized on its tree wheel.

^{· augmented tree 02 ·}
The tiny tree has a more naughty personality. Its eyes look at the world with more curiosity.
It captures live imagery of people and synchronously forms its memory on its wheel in a line form.