Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置 by Yalin Wang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award 銅獎 in 生成式設計 Competition Category.

銅生成式· 2026

Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置

by Yalin Wang

Client: Yalin Wang

A' Design Award 銅獎 Winner in 生成式 Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #177508

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The Design

About Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置

《算法肉身》係一件為展示文化遺產而創作嘅互動裝置。裝置會實時追蹤參與者嘅身體動作，並將動作數據作為生成式人工智能系統嘅輸入。呢個系統以敦煌壁畫嘅圖像進行訓練，喺大型投影上生成一位翩翩起舞嘅飛天舞者。當參與者嘅姿勢同壁畫記錄嘅姿態吻合時，參與者嘅剪影就會化身成為舞者。作品嘅目標係將靜態嘅文獻檔案轉化為一種共享而鮮活嘅體驗。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銅獎

Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置是 A' Design Award 銅獎得主，這是授予以創造力、獨創性和敏銳見長的傑出設計的極具聲望的認可。銅獎得主是技藝嫻熟、創意驚人的作品，印證了其設計師豐富的經驗、想像力與機智。預計Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的物品，兼具顯著的專業性與創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銅獎的設計融入藝術、科學、設計和技術領域的最佳實踐，並因注重細節而出類拔萃。Algorithmic Flesh 互動裝置出色地滿足需求，觸動渴望，迷住情感，並吸引好奇心。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: Algorithmic Flesh is an interactive installation redefining cultural heritage preservation as Generative Revitalization. It introduces Somatic Prompting: bypassing text interfaces, the system uses the participant's real-time physical movements as the generative seed. This somatic input drives a deeply trained AI to computationally hallucinate a dynamic, multi-limbed celestial dancer in real-time, using data from UNESCO Dunhuang murals. The audience becomes active co-creators of a living ritual.
Dimensions & Packaging: As a digital installation, "Algorithmic Flesh" is highly scalable for gallery or museum contexts. The typical setup requires a projection area of at least 3m x 2m (supporting either 16:9 landscape or 9:16 portrait orientation, up to 4K resolution) and a participant interaction zone 3-4 meters from the screen.
Tags: Generative AI, Embodied Interaction, Digital Ritual, Cultural Heritage, Human-AI Co-Interpretation, Somatic Prompting, Interactive Art Installation, Dunhuang Murals, Algorithmic Art, Cultural Computing, Choreography
Production Technology: Algorithmic Flesh uses a custom, closed-loop machine learning pipeline within ComfyUI. Real-time, markerless biomechanical tracking is achieved via OpenCV, MediaPipe, and YOLO26. Visual synthesis is driven by a FLUX LoRA model, fine-tuned on Tang Dynasty Dunhuang murals for absolute aesthetic fidelity. Temporal coherence is managed by Wan 2.2 Mixture-of-Experts video architecture, while the Google Veo 3 API provides cinematic spatiotemporal synthesis and native, physics-based audio generation.
Design Challenge: The primary challenge was epistemological: How to reconstruct the dynamic, anti-gravitational flight of ancient murals in a virtual space without reducing them to lifeless 2D data? We emphasize not replacing the physical UNESCO Mogao Caves with a simulation, but speculating on new representation models. We challenge the passive museum dynamic, proposing an interactive framework where human flesh computationally hallucinates and sustains the continuous flow of a broken historical lineage.
Research: This research addresses the loss of kinesthetic knowledge in static cultural heritage by introducing a Generative Revitalization framework. Pioneering somatic prompting, the project explores how a participant's body guides a generative AI without text. The machine, trained on Dunhuang mural archives, computationally generates lost transitional movements between ancient poses. This offers a new perspective on digital materiality, transforming a passive archive into an embodied, co-interpretive ritual.
Inspiration: How can we reawaken a dance frozen in stone for a millennium? Traditional digital preservation secures visual fidelity but flat-lines the dynamic essence of the Dunhuang Apsara murals into static maps—a Crisis of Stasis. Inspired by Heimkehren (returning home) and Buddhist philosophies of Anitya (Impermanence) and Pratityasamutpada (Interdependence), the design treats machine intelligence as a collaborator, celebrating the poetic instability of forms in transition as Digital Epiphanies.
Project Duration: The project was developed over a 10-month period from January to October 2025. The research and technical implementation were conducted in Beijing, China, in affiliation with the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Operation Flow: A participant stands before the projection. Instantly, a "Cosmic Telemetry" UI tracks their skeletal data in real-time. As they move, the system calculates their posture against a canonical Dunhuang dataset (e.g., "raised_leg_flying [0.96] Mogao Cave 285"). Upon a high-confidence match, this somatic prompt triggers the AI. The UI dissolves, and the user's silhouette morphs into a fluid, hyper-realistic celestial dancer, transforming the viewer into a co-creator of a living ritual.
Patents: Copyrights belong to Yalin Wang, 2025. All algorithms and visual outputs are original research generated for academic and artistic purposes at CAFA.
Image Credits: Image #1: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.
Image #2: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.
Image #3: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.
Image #4: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.
Image #5: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.
Video Credits: Creator Yalin Wang, Algorithmic Flesh, 2025.