MERGE - an Interactive installation.
Isolation.
connection.
unity.
Three ways
feeling
emotions
interactivity.
MERGE - IN THE MAKING
Merge, an interactive installation, influenced by the dance and rave community. Built in touchdesigner. Forged from the emotions and feelings I have gathered and had whilst growing into the community. Merge consists of Three Movements, Isolation, Connection and Unity. That can be manipulated by human interaction.
Isolation.
The first movement sits in darkness. It’s confusing, disorientating, and intentionally unclear. I built this around the feeling of not knowing where to go or how to begin — something I experienced when I first started finding my own sound. The visuals wander across the screen, searching, never settling. Sonically, it blends garage-inspired rhythms with ambient textures, creating a space that feels both empty and full at the same time. It’s about being lost, but also about the quiet beginnings of exploration.
Connection.
This second movement shifts everything. It’s louder, more vocal, more energetic. It represents building relationships, finding people, sharing ideas, and learning from others. Over the past three years, working alongside talented students and professionals, this is the stage I feel I’ve been living in. The visuals reflect this growth, with lines and elements that link together, all reacting to the music and to each other. Nothing exists alone anymore. The sound evolves too, mirroring that development as an artist more confident, more layered, more intentional.
Unity.
The final movement moves into something calmer but more powerful. It’s about being part of something bigger, a community that supports, inspires, and pushes you forward. The visuals become more abstract and expansive, shifting away from the previous structures. Elements like repeated noise patterns stretch across the screen, representing the many voices and influences within the industry. The music carries a sense of resolution but also change, a reminder that growth doesn’t stop, it just transforms.
Interaction.
Alongside the three movements sits an interactive layer that evolved into something more meaningful than I originally planned. Using a MIDI controller and webcam tracking, hand gestures were mapped to manipulate both the audio and visuals in real time. What started as a technical addition became a reflection of distraction and interruption the way external moments and people can influence your own creative flow. There were six hand gestures that manipulated the movements.
Pinch- a bandpass filter, followed and manipulated by the distance from your thumb to your index finger.
Closed fist – slows the speed of the music.
Victory – uses a tile element that adds extra layers to the visual
Thumbs up – uses a filter that creates the visual to distort and increase the pixel size.
Point up – adds a filter called sharpen, increasing the most prominent colour.
Open palm – implements feedback creating a spaced bubble texture to the visual
Merge has been developing for over a year building visuals and pathways from scratch inside TouchDesigner. On the 6th of May, I presented the installation at Rosebery Road Studios. Seeing people engage with it was one of the most rewarding parts. The interactive element especially created a space where people weren’t just experiencing the work, but sharing it, exchanging ideas, learning from each other, and forming a small community within the installation itself.
Not everything went to plan. I wasn’t able to set up the three stereo pairs I originally designed for, which limited part of the spatial experience. But even with that, the outcome opened up new directions.
Moving forward, I’m interested in pushing this further especially the idea of combining it with a live DJ set, where the audience can actively manipulate both the sound and visuals in real time. Turning the crowd from observers into collaborators.
CONTEXT
Audiovisual work has started to move away from just existing on a screen and more into physical, immersive spaces, where sound, visuals, and the environment all work together. In these kinds of installations, visuals aren’t just reacting to music, they shape how people move through and experience the space. With tools like real-time rendering and generative software, it’s now possible to build systems where visuals are directly driven by sound and data, making each experience feel more alive and less fixed. Artists like Max Cooper, Refik Anadol, and Alva Noto all approach this in different ways, from large-scale data-driven work to more minimal, signal-based visuals. My project sits within this space, exploring how these systems can be used to build something immersive and responsive.
Visually, a big influence for me has been Ryoji Ikeda. His work is really stripped back and very precise, often monochrome, and completely driven by data and sound. That direct relationship between audio and visual was something I wanted to bring into my own project, especially through real-time, audio-reactive systems. At the same time, I didn’t want it to feel too rigid, so I pushed it towards something more fluid and evolving, especially across the three movements of the piece.
The installation Box by Bot and Dolly was another key reference, particularly in how it uses movement. In Box, a simple cube is transformed through choreographed motion and projection, constantly shifting how the space feels. That idea of using movement to structure the experience directly influenced how I approached my project. Instead of physical movement, I translated that into generative visuals, structuring the piece into three stages, Isolation, Connection, and Unity. Each with its own behaviour and atmosphere.
On the music side, I’ve been influenced by artists like Ross from Friends, Four Tet, Overmono, and Barker. What I like about their work is how they balance emotion with structure and combining club rhythms with more atmospheric and reflective elements. That progression is something I tried to mirror across the three movements, starting more ambient and uncertain, then becoming more rhythmic and connected, before opening out into something more resolved.
A big part of the project is the interactive layer. Using gesture controls and MIDI, people can manipulate both the sound and visuals in real time. What started as more of a technical feature ended up becoming central to the piece. It shifts the audience from just watching to taking part, which links back to the communal side of electronic music and rave culture. When I presented the work, this was one of the most interesting parts. people weren’t just experiencing it individually, but interacting, sharing ideas, and shaping the space together.