To Eternity

To Eternity is an interactive media installation commemorating the Gwangju Democratization Movement (May 18, 1980). Using real-time body recognition, the system transforms the audience’s silhouette into a living mosaic of historical photographs collected from the uprising.

When a participant performs a flower-offering gesture and sustains it for more than five seconds, the system recognizes the motion and triggers an automatic capture, overlaying 300 archival images across the participant’s silhouette to create a digital memorial portrait. Through this embodied act of remembrance, the work converts silent mourning into a collective ritual, where technology mediates empathy, presence, and history.

Engine: Unity
Language: C#
Hardware: Azure Kinect · Depth Camera · Projection Screen · PC (NVIDIA RTX 3080)
Software: OpenCV · TouchDesigner
Dataset: ~300 archival photographs (May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement)

Pipeline:

Depth & Skeleton Tracking
Captured real-time depth and body index maps using Azure Kinect SDK.
Extracted joint coordinates to detect upper-body pose patterns.

Gesture Recognition System
Defined a “flower offering” gesture via upper-arm and hand position vectors.
Pose classified as offering when confidence exceeded 86% for 5 seconds.
Gesture event triggered photo capture and mosaic generation.

Archival Image Integration
Preprocessed ~300 high-resolution documentary images (licensed from participating photojournalists).
Used custom mosaic algorithm in Unity to layer archival photos over the live silhouette in real time.

Shader Composition
Implemented GPU-based blending shader controlling transparency, luminance mapping, and time-based fade-in.
Combined Unity and TouchDesigner pipeline for synchronized projection and visual fading.

Projection Display
Final composite projected onto a large wall surface, creating a memorial altar visualization that responded to audience participation.

Artistic & Research Focus

The project transforms commemoration into participation, exploring how technology can preserve and reinterpret historical empathy. Through gesture, time, and presence, To Eternity bridges personal mourning and collective memory. By allowing the audience’s body to become the medium of remembrance, it redefines memorial experience as a collaborative and living archive, where the act of offering flowers becomes a generative visualization of solidarity and resilience.