Reflexions – Gestural Play as an Interactive Art Installation

Gestural Reflexions is an interactive art installation developed at the University of Tartu. It runs on a large horizontal display and responds to hand gestures.

No controllers. No touchscreen. No instructions. Just raise your hands and see what happens. ✋

Turning the body into a controller for living digital art.

This project extends the original Reflexions installation by adding hand gesture recognition, game mechanics, and multi-user support across three artworks. Two existing works were redesigned, and one — Rock-Paper-Scissors — was built from scratch.

Multiple people can interact at the same time, each shaping the same shared artwork. The social dynamics that emerge — competition, cooperation, curiosity — are entirely uninstructed.

Gesture and play can be a medium for art.

Developed as a master's thesis project at the Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, in the CGVR Study Lab.

🌐 Project website  |  📄 Read the thesis

The next pages in this project page are: 🎨 Artworks  |  ⚙️ Implementation