Silent Futures

An interactive installation for frog design’s South By Southwest Pop Party in March 2023. Explored themes of possible futures, digital communication, and Community-Based Action. 

This installation asked SXSW attendees to use silent body language via digital sensors and physical interactions to work together and envision possible futures. Through three separate input sensors, we asked questions about the future of artificial intelligence and humanity, public activism and community, and climate change. As partygoers warmed up temperature sensors, gestured with their hands, and turned dials up and down, their inputs changed the colors, patterns, and intensities of the sound frequency particle visuals on the screen, while creating their ideal or most feared futures, blurring the lines between artists and viewers.


Built by Kellyn Dassler (Lead Creative Technologist), Alexander Kennedy (Lead Mechanical Engineer), and Ben Ellsworth (Visual Artist)

Mediums: p5.js, MediaPipe, Arduino, digital sensors, 3D printer, late nights, lots of duct tape