The What
Mood Shift is an interactive generative artwork that transforms your emotions into real-time visual echoes. It listens to your face — and responds with shifting color delays, particle patterns, and emotional presence.
At its core, it’s a mirror made of motion: your inner world, reflected outward through reactive light.
The Why
Mood Shift is rooted in the desire to make our invisible emotional states visible.
In a world where we, unfortunately, often mask or mute our feelings, this piece creates a digital space where your mood becomes the medium.
It's not about surveillance. It’s about presence.
How do we feel ourselves in the moment?
What might it look like if your body could talk through visuals and without words?
It’s a poetic tool for introspection, and a reflection on how technology might not just read us, but reveal us.
The How
The experience is built using a hybrid pipeline of Python and TouchDesigner:
- Facial Emotion Detection: A Python script running DeepFace analyzes your webcam feed for emotions like joy, neutrality, anger and fear.
- Real-time Data Transfer: Emotions and confidence values are sent over UDP to TouchDesigner.
- Generative Visuals: A live particle system (Sprinkle SOP) responds to the emotional data.
- Design Layering: Vignette-style blurring frames the scene, creating a focused center and hazy edges.
This creates a visual system where emotions aren’t just labeled, they’re felt through light, rhythm, and form.