Overview
Pen to Page is an interactive media art installation I created for my graduation exhibition at Chung-Ang University.
Visitors receive a paper outline of a bird and color it by hand. When they scan their drawing at the installation, their bird comes alive on a large display with its own unique animation, joining the flock of birds drawn by other visitors throughout the exhibition.
Exhibition Experience
The piece is rooted in the Korean folk tale of Gyeonwoo and Jiknyeo, two lovers separated by a river who can only meet once a year when a bridge of magpies forms across the sky. When enough birds gather on screen, the flock builds that bridge and the two lovers finally meet. The ending only plays through collective participation.
My Role
I led the creative direction end to end: the visual concept, the illustration style of the birds and the world they fly through, the sound design, and the physical installation. I worked alongside the engineering team on the computer vision pipeline that recognizes each bird and the motion system that brings it to life on screen.
Process
Each bird outline was designed in Illustrator. QR codes were embedded at the diagonal corners of each sheet so the system could identify which bird species was being scanned.
Visitors color their bird by hand. Sheets are printed with the QR codes pre-embedded, ready to be scanned at the installation.
When a visitor places their drawing under the camera, the system reads the QR code, maps their coloring onto that bird's individual animation, and releases it onto the screen to join the flock.
The world the birds fly through was built to feel like a living paper landscape. Environmental assets were generated with Midjourney and given a paper texture to match the hand-drawn quality of the visitors' drawings. A day-to-night lighting cycle plays as the flock grows.
When enough birds gather, the flock builds the bridge and the two lovers finally meet. The piece ends with a farewell scene as they part again until next year.
Sound was layered from fluttering wing sounds and ambient traditional Korean music to reinforce the atmosphere of the space.
06 — Physical InstallationBeyond the software, the piece required a physical build that turned a corner of the gallery into the interior of a traditional Korean room. I started by hand-drawing 2D illustrations to pre-visualize the entire setup, sketching how each element would sit in space. From those sketches I sourced or fabricated every prop in the installation.
For the centerpiece "window," I bought a wooden frame sized to the TV screen and applied hanji (traditional Korean paper) directly onto it by hand. The frame was taller than the TV, so I built a hanji wall from scratch by mounting hanji wallpaper onto hardboard, then connected it to the TV. The result framed the screen as if visitors were looking out a window from inside a traditional Korean room, embedding the digital animation in a tactile, culturally specific space.
Outcome
Over three months of development we went through multiple rounds of concept revision and shipped the project fully realized by the deadline.
Pen to Page was repeatedly singled out as the most polished and conceptually beautiful piece in the show.