Interview about Blossom Interactive Installation, winner of the A' Interactive, Experiential and Immersive Design Installations Award 2025
Blossom is an interactive video installation inspired by Eastern philosophy, emphasizing the cycle of life and the importance of being present. Through the blooming of a Hibiscus rosa sinensis, China rose, in response to the viewer's presence, the piece invites contemplation of life's transient beauty. It encourages viewers to embrace the moment, finding clarity and meaning within the perpetual rhythm of existence.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsAs an artist who has lived in an Eastern context and culture for a very long time, I constantly reflect on how technology can be a conduit for philosophical ideas rather than their antithesis. During the Blossom design phase, I was determined to resist the tendency of interactive art to be simply reactive or gimmicky. Instead, I wanted to embed slowness, reward patience, and evoke ritual. By combining sensor-driven responsiveness with meditative visual language drawn from Buddhist and Taoist aesthetics, I aimed to create a space where technology doesn't interrupt but guides awareness. The project is less about showcasing technological capability and more about subtly reconditioning viewers to pause, breathe, and observe their presence, drawing inspiration from the mindful cadence of Eastern spiritual practice but realized through modern means.
I was fascinated by the idea of proximity as a metaphor for attention. Time-of-Flight sensors offered me a way to capture physical distance as a stand-in for mental presence. The choice was deliberate: unlike other sensors that rely on dramatic movement or touch, ToF enables subtle detection—even slight shifts in stance become meaningful. During prototyping, I realized this technology could recreate the unspoken dialogue that happens in spiritual practice: approach with intention and you receive openness; withdraw hastily and you encounter closure. This felt profoundly aligned with mindfulness, where awareness of your own position and movement in space is essential. I wanted the viewer to discover that by simply pausing, they could unlock the installation's full bloom.
Through the blooming of a Hibiscus rosa-sinensis in response to the viewer’s presence, I wanted the piece to invite people to think about the beauty of things that don’t last forever. The flower blooms only when someone is there and closes when they leave, mirroring how moments in life are brief but meaningful if we truly pay attention. It’s a way to encourage people to embrace the present and to see value in what is happening right now rather than always looking ahead or rushing past. The interaction is simple, but it’s meant to make viewers slow down and reflect on the constant cycle of appearing and disappearing in our own lives. I hope it offers a quiet space to find clarity and meaning in that ongoing rhythm of change.
My choice of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis was deeply personal and intentional. Growing up in China, hibiscus flowers were a common sight, yet their symbolic weight often went unnoticed in daily life. I wanted to reclaim that familiarity and highlight its nuanced cultural meanings: beauty, fragility, and ephemerality. Unlike lotuses, which carry heavy religious iconography, the hibiscus felt more grounded, and more human. Its tendency to bloom brightly yet briefly resonated with the Buddhist idea of transience (無常). During my research, I also discovered the hibiscus is a global migrant—it thrives in many cultures, echoing my own experience moving between East and West. This universality made it the perfect vessel for a message about presence, vulnerability, and cross-cultural dialogue. The selection wasn't merely aesthetic; it was about crafting a shared language through a humble, yet profound botanical symbol.
Receiving the A’ Design Award was both validating and clarifying. It reinforced my belief that there is a global appetite for work that transcends technological spectacle to engage cultural nuance and emotional depth. The recognition encouraged me to lean even further into this space of dialogue—where interactive media isn't just about novelty but about forging connections across worldviews. It also taught me the importance of accessibility: audiences from diverse backgrounds responded to "Blossom" because it communicated through a universal yet culturally rooted metaphor. The award made clear that interactive art can be a bridge, not just a display, and it’s motivated me to be even more intentional about how technology can foster empathy between cultural traditions.
During testing and exhibitions, I noticed people were naturally curious and quickly figured out how to interact without needing instructions. They treated it playfully, exploring how to make the flower bloom. What surprised me most was how much children loved it. They were drawn in immediately and spent a long time experimenting. I hadn’t expected it to appeal so strongly to kids, and that showed me how intuitive and inviting the interaction really was.
Achieving that balance was arguably the hardest part of the project. Early prototypes were either too sensitive or too sluggish. Too reactive, and the flower felt like a toy; too slow, and it risked alienating viewers. I spent months calibrating the ToF sensor’s range thresholds and writing custom code to ensure that the flower’s opening mirrored natural botanical motion to be deliberate, gradual.
I wanted Blossom to feel personal like you’re discovering something quiet and alive just for you. The small size was very intentional; it made people come closer, almost leaning in as if they’re looking at a real flower in a garden. I found that bigger prototypes felt too distant or like furniture people could ignore. With this size, you can’t just stand back and watch casually. You have to choose to engage, to step into that small space. That choice creates a more focused, reflective experience.
I chose the CRT precisely because it is an anachronistic, almost obsolete technology that surprises viewers by being interactive at all. In my exhibitions, people often approach it with curiosity, expecting static nostalgia, and instead discover an unexpectedly responsive experience. This moment of surprise is important to me—it subverts the assumption that technological art must showcase cutting-edge tools, challenging the uncritical worship of the "new." I wanted to demonstrate that so-called outdated media can still evoke profound depth and poetic resonance. The CRT’s glow and physical bulk lend a sense of warmth and memory that contemporary flat screens simply cannot replicate. It becomes a conceptual anchor—an intersection where past and present, analog and digital, human memory and machine vision all meet. This choice wasn’t purely aesthetic; it was philosophical, reinforcing the work’s broader meditation on time, presence, and the layered nature of perception. Ultimately, the CRT helps me question how technology shapes not only what we see but how we understand impermanence and our own role as witnesses in an evolving digital world.
For me, Blossom is a way to show that technology in art doesn’t always have to look “futuristic” or cutting-edge. It can use traditional, even old, or forgotten media to say something meaningful. I chose things like the CRT screen on purpose because I think these older technologies carry memory, warmth, and history that newer, slicker tools often lack. I hope this work can encourage more artists to think about technology as just one language among many, not the whole message. In the future, I want to keep exploring how we can use any kind of medium. I think this approach can make interactive art feel more human, more reflective, and more personal.
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