Generative visual content, projection design, mapping, and installation

​

Algaerhythmic Waves is an interactive and generative audiovisual installation by Kimberley Bianca and Tyler Grimes made during a production residency at B2 Center for Media and Performance at CU Boulder in March 2026. The work combines environmental data, EEG brain signals, plant signals, and gestural tracking in a generative feedback loop that frames water as “the original mirror.” Participants are invited to attune to water as process, relation, and interface. This residency was made possible with support from B2 staff; Brad Gallagher, Sean Winters, and Chris Petillo.

​

The project draws on the ecological dynamics of eutrophication to think about systems shaped by accumulation and excess. In aquatic ecosystems, nutrient overload can trigger algal blooms that eventually destabilize the environment. Algaerhythmic Waves translates these processes into an experiential system where environmental data, EEG brain signals, plant signals, and gestural tracking interact within a generative feedback loop. Participants do not control the system directly. Instead, they move within it, allowing attention, gesture, and environmental signals to fall into shared rhythms.

​

The installation was developed through iterative experimentation with real-time media tools, primarily using TouchDesigner to integrate environmental datasets, sensor inputs, and computer vision. Data from water flow and cyanobacteria monitoring is compressed and translated into dynamic visual and sonic behaviors, making ecological processes that normally appear as charts or measurements visible and responsive.

​

Physical materials play an important role in the work. Locally sourced aquatic plant species, rocks, and water are arranged alongside a Biotron environmental sensor, artificial aquatic plants and moss, a 24 × 24 inch transparent glass tank, a 12 inch glass cylinder containing cyanobacteria (Microcystis aeruginosa), and a 360-degree camera. .