the BUG we are

Concept

“The Bug We Are” examines the pervasive presence of surveillance in the digital age through playful transformation. Visitors are unknowingly recorded as they explore the space, their features and clothing colors captured and abstracted. These details are used to generate unique bug-like avatars, displayed within a miniature maquette representing the room. The artwork reveals how our physical selves are fragmented and reassembled by unseen systems, inviting reflection on identity and control in a surveilled world.

The Concept

In a world dominated by surveillance and digital simulacra, humanity is increasingly fragmented and reduced to data points. The Bug We Are explores this unsettling reality by reimagining visitors as generative, bug-like avatars, created from fragments of their own captured appearance. These bugs—distorted, mechanized versions of their human counterparts—inhabit a scaled-down replica of the exhibition space, critiquing the ways in which identity is dissected and reconstructed within surveillance systems.

As visitors enter the installation, a hidden webcam covertly records their visual features, extracting colors and textures from their clothing. These captured elements are fed into a generative system, which designs unique parametric bugs. Within the maquette, each visitor’s bug moves, interacts, and reflects their presence in an uncanny, otherworldly form.

Unaware at first of their transformation, visitors observe the maquette and its bug inhabitants. The moment of realization—that these abstract creatures represent themselves—evokes a confrontation with the dehumanizing effects of surveillance and the creation of digital doubles. The installation invites reflection on how systems of control distort identity, turning individuals into unrecognizable fragments within a manufactured simulacrum.

The Aim

The Bug We Are blurs the line between the observer and the observed, critiquing the roles we play in perpetuating systems that surveil, fragment, and reshape our humanity into data-driven abstractions.

Technical Aspect

The technical backbone of “The Bug We Are” integrates real-time image capture, pose and texture recognition, and generative design. A camera discreetly records visitors’ features and clothing colors as they explore the installation. Using tools like OpenCV for color extraction and MediaPipe for pose estimation, the system transforms these inputs into unique generative parameters. This data is sent to Firebase, enabling seamless integration with Unreal Engine, where parametric bug-like avatars are procedurally generated. Each avatar reflects the visitor’s captured colors and inferred “posture,” creating a dynamic interplay between the physical and digital realms, presented within the maquette.