Eyes on you: A visual representation of the cyclical nature of obsession, explored through the metaphor of the human gaze

As you enter the space, your presence is immediately detected through a webcam attached from top down. The eyes respond in real-time, and follows your movements. It dilates and constricts in response, visually representing the flow of interest and obsession.

When you remain still, the pupils dilate, intensifying the sense of growing obsession.
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As users engage with the installatons, it prompts a reflection on their own experiences of fascination and disinterest with the idea of obsession.

Creation of Eye Visuals is using AI Generated Images, composited on Touch Designer.

We seggregated parts of an eye into various layers before compositing them in TouchDesigner.  This method enabled the manipulation of specific parts of the eye to achieve the intended effect.

The initial prototypes used optical flow and blob tracking in TouchDesigner to detect movement directions—left, right, up, and down—and were mapped to the eye's position to follow the motion. However, this method proved slow and occasionally inaccurate.

Hence, we decided to use MediaPipe as this provided more reliable and responsive coordinates for tracking participant movement in real time. Using the pose tracking component from the MediaPipe library, we mapped the participant's nose tip coordinates to rotate the eye toward their position.

Using an lfo as a counter, I toggled between an increase and decrease count to control the size of the eye pupil based on detection of still movement by the participant.

This creates the effect where, as the participant locks eyes with them, the eyes begin to dilate, symbolizing a growing obsession.