XR Performance Study 01: The Morph
Audience → Performer → Digital Avatar & Environment
This work is part of an ongoing research series investigating the relationships between audience, performer, virtual avatar, and digital environment within participatory performance systems.
Through a series of experiments, different channels of influence are tested and compared to examine how agency, perception, and feedback emerge across physical and virtual spaces.
In this experiment, audience members directly influence the performer through physical interaction. The performer’s responses then drive changes in the virtual environment and avatar.
Performance Structure
Audience members physically pull ropes attached to the performer’s body.
The performer wears a custom motion-capture system that drives a synchronized digital avatar.
As the audience alters the performer’s physical condition, the avatar interacts with the virtual environment, triggering collisions, transformations, and growth processes.
The work explores the tension between internal identity and external forces, positioning the audience as an embodied representation of social pressure, influence, and control.
Research Observation
This configuration generated a heightened sense of agency, responsibility, and emotional investment.
Because participants could directly feel the consequences of their actions on another body, interaction became more deliberate and ethically charged. The tactile connection between audience and performer transformed participation from symbolic interaction into embodied decision-making.
Exhibitions
Media Commons, 370 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY, 2025
La MaMa Galleria, New York NY, 2025