Invisible Water is a device that projects an imagined industrial soundscape into a theatre space. It also incorporates the site-specific history of the exhibition through a miniature landscape.

A brief of the project:

The full length of the device video is at the end.

Materials

A 3D-printed box with a camera, a yarn ball, a virtual body of water. Within the theatre space, it is surrounded by a pile of river stones.

• USB Camera: 60 fps, 120 FOV, 720p
• 3D-printed device: 2mm resin
• Raspberry Pi / MacBook Pro
• Cobblestones from Dujiangyan, a 2250 year old ancient irrigation system riverbed
• Cat stick + blue yarn ball
• Theatre audio system

Exhibition

The installation is situated in an art space—a converted factory now used as a theatre—located behind the Manjusri Monastery in Chengdu. The space is approximately 15x20 meters with a 12-meter vertical clearance. The device box is placed within the pile of cobblestones. Viewers are invited to step forward and interact with the device. The sounds of the virtual water body are projected into the entire space via the speaker system, thus translating the movement within the box to the surrounding environment.

Production

Early prototype can be found at:

The camera is mounted on the bottom of the box, tracking the yarn ball’s current position and movement within a virtual body of water inside the box. When the viewer manipulates the “fishing pole” (scratching post) to drop the ball onto the virtual water’s surface, its depth and movement in the water are delineated by sound. The water’s bottom contains a static coordinate zero point and a moving, traceable “Telegraph Sound Source” for interaction. When the yarn ball and the Telegraph Sound Source’s movements synchronize, lifting the ball out of the water triggers the sound of dogs barking and running around the yarn ball “prey.”

The software is completed in Unity, with sound elements created through recording, synthesis, and editing in Audacity.

Theatre

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Collaboration: Lyu Lu

Date: Oct, 2025