An Internal Other

The body as a site of transformation interrogated through gesture and answered in particles.

An Internal Other is an interactive installation created for Liquid Bodies, a dual exhibition at Medical Museion and Politikens Forhal in Copenhagen exploring stem cells, biotechnology, and the mutable boundaries of the human body.

Drawing on contemporary stem cell research, the work approaches the body not as a fixed entity but as a process of continuous transformation. Visitors encounter a system that responds to movement and gesture, translating bodily expression into dynamic visual formations that exist between biological and computational forms.

At its core, An Internal Other explores how emerging biotechnologies are reshaping ideas of identity, embodiment, and selfhood. It invites participants to reflect on the unfamiliar processes unfolding within their own bodies and on the increasingly porous boundary between the biological, the technological, and the imagined.

The installation in TouchDesigner with hand tracking, particle effects, statemachine and audio processing. The work is, at its heart, a branching tree dialog interaction. The audiences pose drives the narative, phase transitions and advances the sequence. Based on the choices the audience takes, the interaction unfolds diffently. The audiences choices progresses their visual transformation into a particle stream and the narative.

In the TouchDesigner network there are two parallel variants: one traces the edge-detected body silhouette, the other fills the full body outline. Both are driven by a custom statemachine and preset system. The preset system manages parameter states across all phases using named snapshots, tagging, and override modes controlling how transitions behave when live state conflicts with stored values.