The Tower

With the VR installation The Tower, Zhao Huang has created a generative, open-ended work that responds to viewers’ brainwaves and provides an immersive experience. An EEG sensor is connected to the viewer, measuring brain activity that provides the variables for the visual experience of the tower. An HTC VIVE headset and headphones are placed on the viewer, providing a 360-degree view of a fantasy environment, where the tower extends both upward and downward in a boundless and cloudy atmosphere. Composed of differently shaped and arranged white blocks, the tower grows line by line, responding algorithmically to the input of the viewer’s brain waves from the EEG sensor. As the tower gradually grows, we come to understand that the further away blocks were generated from previous viewers’ input, creating a link between peoples differing responses. Simultaneously, as the tower is growing in three dimensions in the virtual realm, a projector transmits a two-dimensional diagram of the same patterns onto the wall in front of the viewer, who is not able to see this projection until she removes the VR headset. We can understand how The Tower forms links between participants, not only within the shape of the tower but also between the EEG-participant and those who are viewing their projection on the wall.

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