Interactive screen in custom mirrored nook at a Children’s Law Court
By Betty Sargeant with Jarra Karalinar Steel (Boonwurrung, Wemba Wemba, Trawlwoolway: First Nations heritage). Programming by Dan Macnish.
Permanent public art.
MEDIUM: Interactive video and immersive media nook, with movement sensors.
SIZE: 2.4m (H) x 2.7m (W) x 2.4m (D). DURATION: real-time.
COMMISSIONED BY: Court Services Victoria
GROW: YOU ARE STARDUST is created specifically for children and young people in a new architecturally designed Children’s Law Court building. This artwork features vibrant aesthetics and responsive technology, created in TouchDesigner with a Stereolabs ZED camera. As people approach the screen, their movements trigger the growth of a garden of flowers, which expands and transforms in real-time, reflecting their individual gestures and interactions. With continued engagement, the garden evolves into a lush jungle, and eventually, into a vast galaxy of stars. This artwork is a poetic reminder that we can all grow and change, that we are are all connected, created from stardust.
GROW: You are Stardust is an interactive screen-based artwork in a customised mirrored nook designed specifically for children, young people and their carers in vulnerable circumstances. It transforms a children’s law court foyer into a space of wonder, agency and cosmic connection. This motion-responsive digital wall invites people to become co-creators, using their bodies to cultivate three evolving scenes that cycle from a sprouting garden to verdant jungle to infinite galaxy.
The artwork centres around presence and embodiment. As people approach, a pulsing sun responds to their proximity growing larger with each step. Every movement triggers visual responses on the screen. When people have their arms outstretched, onscreen flowers sprout leaves, and collaborative movement accelerates growth. When the screen fills, coloured petals cascade in celebration, rewarding participation before transitioning to a vast galaxy of stars. In the galaxy, people’s silhouettes becomes constellations, their form outlined in stars, offering a powerful visualisation of belonging within the universe.
Jarra Karalinar Steel’s contemporary visual language is grounded in her First Nations cultural knowledge. Concentric diamonds, crosshatching, and intricate circular patterns draw directly from her South-Eastern Kulin, Indigenous Australian heritage. This communicates deep-rooted connections between land, people and natural cycles, making the unseen visible in vivid colour. This is particularly relevant as the courthouse serves a large First Nations community.
For children attending court proceedings, GROW offers something rare: immediate positive feedback, open-ended fun, sensory engagement without physical contact, and the experience of agency in an environment where control is often limited. The artwork’s core message, that we are all made of stardust, constantly growing and transforming, provides both grounding and positivity, fostering hope through participatory art-making.
SOFTWARE
GROW: YOU ARE STARDUST is programmed in TouchDesigner.
Real-time Motion Mapping: One Steoreolabs ZED 2i camera feeds depth data into TouchDesigner, where custom programming (Python) translate body position, movement velocity, and gesture into visual parameters. Head movements control flower bloom patterns, arm extensions generate leaves, and overall body dynamics determine growth speed, direction and visual density. The artwork was tested on people of varying ages from 2-87 years old, this included people with a variety of physical, psychological and neurological disabilities, ensuring that is responded equitably and consistently for all people.
Generative Content: Each interaction produces unique visual outcomes through procedural generation. Particle systems, shader-based effects, and real-time animation ensure no two engagements are identical while maintaining aesthetic coherence across all three scenes (Garden, Jungle, Galaxy).
Artwork Development: The flower wireframes for the garden scene were created as meshes in Unity. The flower’s textures are a combination of Karalinar-Steel’s hand-drawn contemporary re-workings of traditional First Nations visual ritual, symbolism and language, and Sargeant’s digital illustrations. The textures were wrapped around the meshes and a metallic effect was applied. The garden’s ground was drawn by hand by Karalinar-Steel and Sargeant and was given a 3D quality as it was also wrapped around meshes created in Unity. The TouchDesigner animation creates constant subtle changes in sky textures and colours as well as animating the main flowers, the sun and the grass on the ground. This makes the garden scene feel as if it is entirely alive and responsive.
The galaxy scene is created in TouchDesigner as a particle system. The background of the galaxy is created from hand-drawn and digital illustrations by Karalinar-Steel and Sargeant. The background of the galaxy gently shifts and changes texture and colour during interaction.
State Management: The system tracks scene progression, engagement levels, and reward triggers. When collaborative activity reaches threshold levels, cascading coloured leaves signal the transition to the galaxy scene, providing clear feedback that audience actions have meaningful impact. You can only reach the galaxy scene by interacting with the artwork.
Autonomous Operation: Fork Git enables version control, Windows Task Scheduler manages nightly reboots, and Splashtop allows remote login. The artwork automatically shuts down each night, saving screen pixels from deterioration, and it self-initialises through a 2-minute calibration cycle on startup before the Law Courts open each morning. The system enters its interactive mode automatically.
The artwork has an inbuilt “automatic mode” that it enters when no people are interacting with it. This consists of a sun gently pulsing, in a sky layered in First Nations textured designs, and background colours that gently cycle from deep green, to blue to purple. It is calming. After 90 seconds of pulsing sun, the automatic mode shows three flowers sprouting and gently rocking in a breeze. The flowers recoil back into the soil after 90 seconds and the sun pulses again. If people approach the screen at any time during the automated mode the system shifts seamlessly into interactive mode. When people leave, it shifts smoothly into automatic mode.
HARDWARE
SYSTEM BUILD
Display System: P1.5 COB indoor LED screen 1536px x 1728px resolution.
Motion Sensing: Stereolabs ZED 2i depth camera, providing real-time skeletal tracking and spatial positioning. The system detects multiple participants simultaneously, enabling collaborative interaction.
Computing: Custom-built 4RU PC optimised for real-time generative graphics (Nvidia graphic card) and multi-user interaction processing.
The artwork operates autonomously, requiring no staff intervention.
ARCHITACTURAL SPECIFICATIONS
GROW: YOU ARE STARDUST is a permanent architectural-scale interactive installation measuring 2400mm(H) x 2700mm(W) x 2400mm(D), custom-designed for the Wyndham Children’s Court foyer, Australia. The screen is housed in a mirrored nook creating an infinity effect for participants and allowing the artwork to be visible from all surrounding vantage points, providing a safe space for vulnerable children, young people and their carers. Three circles labelled “HERE”, are permanently fixed on the floor providing a visual invitation for people to interact with the artwork and an indication on the optimal place to stand for maximum responsiveness. This visual cue helps validate engaging with the artwork, encouraging people to be more open to having fun with the artwork.