09 / Individual · Interactive installation
Metamorphosis into Mycelium
Turning touch, anxiety and mycelial metaphors into a responsive sensory installation.
Metamorphosis into Mycelium is my undergraduate final project, an interactive installation that turns five mushroom forms into physical inputs. Touch values travel through Arduino to a TouchDesigner visual system, while a hand-drawn animation carries the project's personal narrative. The work brings research, realtime media, electronics and exhibition making into one sensory encounter.
- Role
- Individual Artist & Interaction Designer
- Year
- 2025
- Context
- BA Digital Media Arts final project · Xiamen
- Tools
- TouchDesigner, Arduino, Procreate, Final Cut Pro, physical fabrication
Current outcome
The final installation was exhibited at ICI Design Season 2025 in Xiamen. It combined a working five-channel touch system, responsive visuals, animation and a moss-covered physical interface. Gallery use showed that visitors could discover the relationship between touch and screen response; sensor calibration, material durability and clearer access guidance remain priorities for a future version.
01 / Research and first prototypes
An anxious moment became a question about touch, transformation and relief.
The project began with a personal experience of anxiety during heavy rain. Imagining myself becoming a mushroom changed the rain from a source of tension into something that could support growth. I used that image to explore how a physical interaction might make an internal emotional shift visible.
Informal conversations and early research focused on the desire for quiet, softness and a sense of safety during anxious moments. The branching structures of neurons and mycelium gave the project a visual language for connection, growth and changing states.
I tested the narrative through two short stop-motion studies. Their small scale helped me decide how transformation and rain could work before I committed to the final hand-drawn animation.
02 / Narrative and visual language
Two visual systems carried the story and the live emotional state.
I drew the final animation frame by frame in Procreate and assembled it in Final Cut Pro. The sequence follows a figure gradually becoming a mushroom, using rain, small animals and growth as moments within the transformation.
In TouchDesigner, I built a responsive mesh that expands, contracts and changes colour. The animation gives the work a linear story. The realtime mesh shows a state that can be altered through touch.
03 / Touch and realtime feedback
Five mushroom inputs controlled five visual responses.
The interaction began with a basic touchpad connected to Arduino. After confirming that physical input could reach TouchDesigner over serial, I replaced the switch with mushroom forms that produced changing resistance values.
Each mushroom connected to a separate analogue pin. Arduino sent the five values to TouchDesigner, where they changed scale, brightness, speed, colour and intensity. Threshold tests helped each input respond consistently while people used the installation.
Physical input
Five touch-sensitive mushroom forms on a shared surface.
Signal
Arduino reads each channel and sends values through serial communication.
Visual response
TouchDesigner maps the values to motion, colour, scale and intensity.
04 / Installation build
The interface moved from the desk to a moss-covered shared surface.
I built the final touchpoint as a low plinth covered with a soft moss-like surface. Five mushroom forms sat within easy reach, with the electronics and cables concealed below. Two screens separated the realtime visual system from the hand-drawn narrative.
Gallery setup required repeated testing of screen visibility, cable routes and input sensitivity. The installation needed to read as one environment while allowing visitors to discover the touch interaction with minimal explanation.
05 / Exhibition and reflection
Visitors quickly discovered the link between touch and movement.
During the degree show, visitors touched one mushroom at a time, compared the effects and returned to the same input to check the response. The realtime change made the interaction legible and gave the personal story a shared physical form.
The project brought together research, narrative, electronics, realtime visual design and fabrication. A stronger next version would use more durable sensor housings, calibrate sensitivity for longer sessions and provide clearer guidance for different reach and mobility needs.
