Proteus 3.5 is a mixed media, interactive and generative installation that allows the visitors to interact with a large-scale digitized ferromaterial image…
Proteus is a collaborative project continuously evolving as a series of mixed-media interactive installations integrating human and machine intelligence to interact with organic material behaviour, digital modulation, and human perception. A common material vector to the series gathers the unique characteristics of ferrofluid — a colloidal material that dynamically alters its shape under magnetic influence — to evoke an elemental, elusive presence akin to the ancient god Proteus, a foretelling deity reappraised and characterised anew throughout digitised communication. As Proteus shifts between forms to evade truth, it becomes a contemplative meditation on change, unpredictability, and the vast unknown. This behaviour speaks to the universal myth of the desire to understand and categorize phenomena that resist stable form.
Proteus 3.5 is a mixed media, interactive and generative installation that allows the visitors to interact with a large-scale digitized ferromaterial image through their mental states. A Brain-Computer interface measures the neural activity of the visitors and adapts the resolution of ferromaterial accordingly, facilitating a more intense human-material interaction. A visual experience is strengthened through the image reflections and refractions inside an immersive, room-scale chamber, which altogether blends the visitor with the light and their visual reflections. Proteus takes the form of an architectural chamber for one to be Contemplating In a Cloud. It has been designed in reference to the architecture of small and primitive chapels, purposed for contemplation and spiritual introspection detached from the physical world. Like a box cut out from a cathedral, Proteus presents black sectional simplicity from the outside and a shimmering immersive interior. Stepping inside, visitors are immersed in the surrounding animated and organic image. The omnipresent effect is obtained with a frontally positioned human-scale digital screen and its reflections on the surrounding mirror-like metal surfaces. Cladded panels are smoothly deformed as water ripples, which additionally strengthens the immersive effect and the organic aesthetics of the series.
Interior view in complete immersion during an interactive session with a brain-computer interface. Once entering the space, anyone can join a speechless conversation with it, learning together the flow of each other's attention; the abstract patterns modulate their intensity and resolution to ripple along the surfaces of the installation. What was a dark and geometric silhouette from a distance radiates from the inside by the mental activity of its beholder.
Interactive session with BCI inside the installation.
Series: Proteus
Version: 3.5
Title: Contemplating In a Cloud
Year: 2023
Type: Interactive and Generative Installation
Authors: CompMonks, Maria Smigielska
Dimensions / Format: 150 x 270 x 250 cm, 85’ 4K - 3840 x 2160 px
Materials: Digital screen, BCI, reinforcement learning, metal panels, wood carpentry.
Funding: Commissioned by the Copernicus Science Center Warsaw for the permanent exhibition “Humans 2.0”
Production: CompMonks, Maria Smigielska
Collaboration: Interaxon - Brand collaboration,Copernicus Science Center - Brand collaboration,ETH Zürich - Scientific collaboration
Exhibitions: Superorganism, Przemiany Festival (Copernicus Science Center, 2023),Humans 2.0 (Copernicus Science Center, 2024)
Acquisitions: Humans 2.0 (Copernicus Science Center, 2023)
©CompMonks, Maria Smigielska