PROJECT: CANOPY is a six-channel interactive projection installation that imagines a near-future health surveillance state. Across six synchronized screens, the system performs a continuous, automated audit of the human body, fragmenting the viewer into data points, biometrics, and classifications. Each screen is assigned a single domain of surveillance, collectively constructing a totalizing portrait of biological control.

The work draws on the visual language of medical diagnostics, security infrastructure, and biometric technology to ask: what does it mean when the body itself becomes the border to cross?

The title evokes the canopy as both shelter and enclosure: something that covers, and in covering, watches.

Screen 1 — Cellular Activity

Screen 2 — Whole-Body Vital Statistics

Screen 3 — Brain Activity

Screen 4 — Personal Identification & Headshot

Screen 5 — Retinal Scan

Screen 6 — Cardiac Monitoring

PROJECT: CANOPY incorporates a webcam positioned at the entrance of the projection space. Using motion and presence detection, the system registers a viewer approaching as an unauthorized access event.

Upon detection, all six screens simultaneously cut to a synchronized warning state: bright yellow alerts, alarm indicators, and WARNING overlays replace the surveillance feeds. The transition is immediate and total — the viewer's presence, rather than triggering welcome, triggers threat response.

This interaction inverts the logic of typical interactive art, where audience participation is rewarded. Here, engagement is penalized. The viewer's curiosity — the act of looking closer — is the very thing that marks them as a risk.

Haokun Feng — UI design, motion graphics, and footage stylization in After Effects; sound design

Wenxuan Li — TouchDesigner interactive system, presence detection logic, and procedural block and line graphics