Yifan Liu

The Ghost

MAY 2019

INDIvidual work

Fabrication / Physical computing / live VIDEO processing: Yifan Liu

The Ghost is an interactive installation that discusses the phenomenon of social media users being immersed in illusions.

It uses the “Pepper’s Ghost” technique to achieve a hologram display while using a hidden webcam to capture users’ reactions in real time.

The “ghost” in peppers ghost is a metaphor of the illusions that constantly blind us in the digital world, and the filters we see things through on social media.

A coffee can is a daily object that doesn’t have long life span and doesn’t draw much attention. And it is usually discarded as garbage after being consumed. However, there are ways to make it look fancy through filters. It can even be made to look like a piece of artwork, even if it’s not.

I want people to come in front of the installation and see the object by itself in the first place. As they come closer, the video projection of the social media interface is activated and appears as if the object is taken pictures of and posted on instagram. Then I intend to allow the audience to hit a “like” button to give likes to the posts they see. I want them to get hooked for a bit and keep pressing the “like” button. After a certain amount of time, I want the audience to experience a moment when all of the digital content breaks the barrier of the phone screen.