Identifying Gaps & Direction
Over the holidays, I received detailed feedback from my lecturers on both my dissertation and graduation project. This week's consultation provided an opportunity to revisit these comments together and unpack them more clearly. Through discussion, we clarified key issues around my third pillar: exhibition design, coherence, and how the work should come together moving forward.
Feedback Breakdown
"Chapters"
During the consultation, the idea of “chapters” was clarified as a metaphor rather than a structural requirement. Instead of referring to literal book chapters, Andreas described it as a shelf with multiple compartments, where each compartment represents an experiment. The issue was not the individual works, but the absence of a clear connective logic that allows them to function as a coherent whole. This reframing made it evident that my experiments need to be understood relationally; each one linking to the next under a single unifying pillar.
Framework
Exhibition design emerged as a useful framework for this, not as a mandatory final outcome, but as a way to think through sequencing, narrative, and how viewers move from one experiment to another. While the experiments from Semester 1 may not yet qualify as exhibition-ready works, they form critical groundwork. The focus moving forward is not to rework them, but to extract what they reveal and use those insights to inform a conceptual shift towards an exhibition-oriented direction.
Dissertation Planning
Given the limited timeframe, the dissertation now functions less as documentation of a completed exhibition and more as a process of planning and articulation. The first half focuses on conceptualising the exhibition framework, while the second half addresses how this framework might take shape through design. Rather than attempting to resolve all transitions, the emphasis is on developing one new prototype in Semester 2 as a transition piece, positioned alongside Semester 1 works to signal this shift. The discussion section therefore looks both backward and forward: reflecting on how earlier experiments inform future making, and outlining how these learnings lead towards an exhibition proposal
Exhibition Proposal
Importantly, this proposal does not need to be realised; it can exist as a speculative contribution that could sit within a larger exhibition on algorithms, rather than a standalone curated show. Framing my work as a contributor rather than a curator significantly narrows the scope and strengthens focus. Moving into the next phase, especially if working with physical materials, the priority is to strengthen the conceptual grounding of the work: answering why a material, interaction, or form is chosen before considering technological execution.
Case Studies
To better understand how abstract systems can be translated into tangible, experiential forms, I researched existing physical works and material-based projects. These case studies demonstrate clear and intuitive relationship between user input, system response, as well as various Arduino-OLED projects which explore how small screens, minimal interfaces, and physical controls can communicate system states.
Materialising the Digital
Throughout this project A-I: Algorithmic Identities, the core concern has been the invisibility of algorithmic systems, and how they quietly shape identity through datafication, feedback loops, and behavioural influences. While these processes operate computationally, their effects are lived, embodied, and emotional.
Materialising the project in physical form is an important step in translating abstract algorithmic operations into experiences that can be sensed, encountered, and questioned. Rather than remaining on screens where algorithmic logic often feels seamless and intangible, physical materialisation introduces friction, scale, and presence, which makes the systems that govern our digital identity more perceptible to the body, as well as the mind.
Hologram Technology
No gloves, no depth camera. Just a Pi, a tiny LCD, and a reflective acrylic pyramid. A simple way to
combine CV, simulation, and physical display into something
playful and surprisingly intuitive.
• A Raspberry Pi camera tracks your hand with basic computer vision
• A boids simulation runs on the Pi (separation, alignment, cohesion)
• The LCD displays the swarm from a mirrored angle
• The acrylic pyramid reflects it as a floating hologram
• Move your hand closer and the flock follows
Findings
From these case studies, I learnt that effective physical works prioritise legibility over complexity. Users should immediately understand how their actions influence the system without explanation. More importantly, these projects show that material choice and interaction design are not neutral, they actively shape how systems are perceived. This insight reinforces the need for my own prototypes to use physical materials not as decorative outputs, but as deliberate tools to make invisible computational processes visible, relatable, and experientially grounded.