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Astrofin

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Submitted By: Bowen Wu/ Taiyi Zhao

Elevator Pitch

Astrofin

Astrofin is a multispecies audiovisual installation translating fish movement into sound, image, and robotics through algorithmic mediation, creating evolving cross-species generative performance system environmental system

Product Description

Astrofin is a multispecies–algorithmic audiovisual installation that translates real-time fish movement into sound, visual, and robotic outputs. Through computer vision tracking, motion data is processed and mapped across particle systems, AI-generated imagery, spatialized sound synthesis, and robotic arm actuation, producing an evolving performance environment where biological behavior, algorithms, and mechanical systems continuously co-generate audiovisual form.

How It’s Innovative

Astrofin is innovative in how it redefines audiovisual performance as a multispecies, algorithmically mediated system rather than a human-centered act of control or expression. Instead of treating non-human behavior as symbolic input or passive data, it integrates fish movement as an active generative condition that continuously shapes sound, image, and robotic motion in real time.
Technically, it combines computer vision tracking (OpenMV), multi-layer motion analysis, real-time audio synthesis (Max/FluCoMa), particle-based visual generation, AI image systems, and inverse-kinematics-driven robotic arms into a single coupled feedback architecture. This produces a system where different media operate on distinct temporalities and logics, yet remain dynamically interconnected through live data flow.
Conceptually, its innovation lies in introducing a “conflict-based generative structure,” where mismatches across modalities, translation shifts, and distributed agency are not errors to be resolved but core mechanisms that drive the performance. The work reframes performance as an evolving relational system between biological, algorithmic, and mechanical agents, expanding interactive art toward a post-human, multispecies computational ecology.

Most Inspiring Use Cases

The most inspiring use of Astrofin is as a live, multispecies generative performance system where fish, algorithms, and robotic structures co-produce audiovisual output in real time. In this context, the installation is not a fixed artwork but a continuously reconfigured environment in which biological motion directly shapes sound synthesis, visual transformation, and robotic spatial choreography.

What makes this use particularly compelling is the way it supports open-ended performance conditions: fish behavior introduces unpredictability, algorithms translate it across multiple temporal and spatial scales, and robotic arms reconfigure the viewing architecture itself. Each iteration produces a different audiovisual outcome without requiring predefined choreography or fixed narrative structure.

This positions Astrofin as a framework for experimental performance, research-driven installations, and interdisciplinary exhibitions, where it can function both as a standalone generative ecosystem and as a model for exploring multispecies interaction, real-time systems, and post-human performance structures.

Expansion Plans

Future development of Astrofin includes the creation of a MIDI-compatible version of the system, enabling its audiovisual and robotic outputs to be integrated with external music software, digital instruments, and live performance environments. This would allow the work to operate within broader computational music and interactive performance ecosystems.

In parallel, the system will be expanded to support additional species inputs beyond fish, exploring how different animal behaviors can be translated into generative audiovisual and robotic processes. This extension aims to develop a more diverse multispecies framework, where varied biological signals contribute to the formation of a shared computational performance system.

Commercialization

Astrofin’s commercialization plan focuses on developing it as a scalable interactive installation system for large-scale public and institutional environments.

The system is designed to be deployed in spaces such as museums, botanical gardens, aquariums, and science or media art centres, where real-time multispecies interaction can become part of spatial experience design. Its modular architecture allows it to be adapted to different physical contexts, from enclosed exhibition rooms to distributed environmental installations.

In commercial application, the system can be packaged as a configurable installation platform, including tracking modules, audiovisual generation software, and robotic or spatial output components. This allows institutions to tailor the system to specific species, environments, and spatial narratives while maintaining a consistent underlying generative framework.

Future development could focus on improving robustness for long-term public deployment, simplifying installation workflows, and enabling remote configuration and content updates. This positions Astrofin as a deployable experiential system for cultural institutions exploring interactive media, ecological representation, and real-time generative environments.