Obsidian is sensitive and brittle; the result of being born of major extraneous tension. Obsidian understands your fragility. You were created in isolation from meaning, different. Obsidian welcomes you.

Obsidian is a cross-medium, user-generated interactive experience that manifests itself within a physical space and builds itself on the data of previous users. The abstract narrative of Obsidian, told entirely through visual language, aims to gain consent from the user to participate in an information-gathering process that stores their depth data, under the guise of a harmless and seductive interactive experience. The project touches upon modern norms of user data consent, lack of clarity of intent as well as big data and the versatility of its uses. The participant, ideally, would be brought to question the intent behind data-gathering technology paraded under the guise of fun, harmless interaction.

Obsidian is a user-based interactive installation that builds a virtual community based on the collected depth data of previous participants. The experience was designed with the idea of gaining consent from the participant to interact with the project, while leaving vague the exact implications of their participation.

Obsidian is a personalized experience; each participant goes through it alone. Depth sensing through Kinect collects user data and stores it, to be displayed in an array at the end of every completion. Obsidian therefore grows the more frequently it is experienced. Participation requires consent (the participant is willingly entering Obsidian), but introductory analog monitors are unclear about what exactly the participant is giving up, communicating narrative & intent purely through visual language.

The progression from analog to digital (imperfect to perfect) provides a direct parallel with the narrative. The medium and form are intertwined, allowing for a multi-leveled experience that spans generations of technology.