The Projection of Mango

This project and research explore how perceptions of self are produced, deconstructed and reshaped through alternative narratives and interactive installation. It urges people to reconsider how individuality emerges through engagement with new media technologies. Combining digital video and interactive technologies with philosophical concepts such as I-Ching and Agential Realism, this project explores the process of becoming through a video essay that charts the lifecycle of a fictional character, named Mango. Mango is a complex entity that is both an imagined being and an abstract idea, taking on many forms throughout the work. Her changes reflect an ongoing instability and shift in her identity. Using an interactive video installation, I conflate the viewer with Mango's image and narrative, mixing subject and object identities. These experiences demonstrate how we have adapted to an environment so heavily reliant on hyper-visibility and cybernetics. Our understanding of ourselves is integrated with the screen image. The body of work – Mango – combines different media techniques including video collage, 3D modelling, facial recognition and interactive design to implicate the audience in a cycle of formation. Through these approaches, Mango offers a new perspective on how we come to look and perceive the world in the projections of others, both animate and inanimate entities. It considers technology as an extension of human desires that hold invisible biases and values.