Adaptive Space
Installation, 2025
Adaptive Space is an exhibition presented in two interconnected parts that explores a hypothetical integration of a brain-computer interface (BCI) and cloud-based AI. The exhibition visualises a virtual reality that appears to continuously reconfigure itself in response to user neural activity. Functioning as an infinite simulation where no destination is fixed, the overarching concept speculates on a future where virtual reality acts as an active, listening system, ostensibly constructing every environment in real-time to anticipate and satisfy immediate subconscious needs for comfort, stimulation, or rest.
Somatic Track
The primary element of the exhibition is Somatic Track, an interactive, real-time generative animation built with JavaScript and the HTML Canvas API. Displayed as a projection, it offers a bird’s-eye view of the perpetually shifting digital architecture. Viewers physically navigate this infinite floor plan using directional hand gestures. Raising a hand moves the perspective North, lowering it travels South, and gesturing left or right shifts the view West or East. As the user moves through a digital doorway, the previous world dissolves, instantly replaced by new environments generated to maintain optimal engagement.
Ambient Shift
The second element, Ambient Shift, acts as a physical manifestation of the digital simulation, taking the form of an abstract room defined by four freestanding glass corner walls within an adjacent gallery space. These glass structures are overlaid with reactive LED film that dynamically shifts in colour as visitors physically cross the open thresholds between the corners, directly mirroring the transitional states of the primary animation. Compounding this shifting sense of reality, the gallery’s lighting independently oscillates between stark illumination and deep darkness over time, fundamentally altering how the boundaries of the physical space are perceived.
