Interactive neural network installation
Tangible Dreams is an interactive art installation where visitors physically interact with a neural network — plugging cables, turning knobs, and flipping switches to generate colorful visuals in real time.
Funded by the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), it was exhibited in August 2025 at MIT’s Stata Center.
See the patterns visitors created below!
I first explored interactive evolution in CPPNWorld, breeding visual worlds on a screen. But clicking felt distant. I wanted to feel the process and shape the system with my hands.
The visuals come from a CPPN: a small network that maps pixel coordinates to colors by composing simple functions (sine, cosine, gaussian).
A CPPN maps each pixel's (x, y) coordinates through composed functions to produce a color.
In Tangible Dreams, each piece of that network becomes something you can touch. Plug a cable between two boxes and you’ve added a connection. Turn a knob and you’ve changed the connection’s strength. Flip a switch and you’ve swapped out the function. The image on the wall transforms instantly.
A first prototype with a MIDI controller
Each node in the network is a physical box. Cables between boxes are connections; knobs control weights and biases; switches select activation functions. The boxes send their state to a computer, which renders the image in real time.
Players turn knobs and reconnect cables to shape the neural network and generate new patterns.
With support from the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), Tangible Dreams was exhibited August 25–29, 2025 in MIT’s Stata Center (R&D Commons, 4th floor).
These are the patterns discovered and saved by visitors during the exhibition. Find others here.
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