In the Fall of 2025, MFA Computer Arts presented its Fall Open Studios event, bringing together multidisciplinary projects from students. As one of five students in the Experimental Art track, my thesis group inhabits the MFA Computer Arts Studio. In the Fall of 2025, this represented a halfway point in our thesis year. For my presentation, I displayed three prototypes of my final thesis installation, Transit.

The final installation will measure 96 inches in each dimension. To demonstrate the scale of the final work, I hung up two 48x96-inch mylar sheets. To show how the work will actually look, I created a small-scale version, scaling down to 36x36 inches. This features a white wooden floor and two gray-tinted acrylic sheets that receive projections of my original abstract motion graphics, created in Houdini. This material allows the surface to be both transparent and reflective, in addition to serving as a projection surface. It is held together and secured to the wooden board with custom 3D-printed brackets that I designed.

Lastly, to demonstrate how it will feel to experience the interactive installation, I hung two smaller sheets of the same gray-tinted acrylic from the ceiling (using custom 3D-printed hardware) with a chair on either side. This was my working prototype for the interaction. Using pressure sensors, Arduino, and TouchDesigner, the vignettes from my abstract video essays shuffled randomly until someone sat in one of the chairs, triggering the video to start from that exact point and initiate the sound. If someone sat in a chair on the other side, the video would shift to a new spot and continue from there. The two viewers influence each other’s experience.

The final work will feature two 48x96-inch sheets of this gray-tinted acrylic. Using similar 3D printed brackets, the acrylic will be both secured to the white wood floor and suspended from the ceiling, to keep the material upright and flush with the floor.