Project Tether
Project Tether is a twelve-month global study and artwork. Each month, participants answer a short emotional survey. Their responses are processed through a custom generative system that converts collective patterns into visual compositions. Each participant receives the resulting print by mail. The project asks whether computational systems can be used not only to measure people, but to re-sensitize us to the presence of strangers.
- Project
- Speculative Project
- Role
- Artist + Designer
- Focus
- Creative Technology
- Date
- Feb 22, 2026
How It Works
Participants would begin by completing a short monthly survey that captures scaled emotional inputs alongside optional written reflections. Responses would be securely aggregated to identify recurring emotional patterns across the group. This dataset would then be fed into a custom generative code system that controls visual variables such as density, color distribution, spatial clustering, and typographic presence, producing the base computational composition.
I would subsequently apply a hand-drawn sketched layer to each image to reintroduce human gesture into the output. The finished print would integrate selected anonymized participant quotes and would be mailed to each participant along with a brief collective summary.
Example
To better visualize how this speculative project would function, I created a low-fidelity prototype of the full pipeline. Instead of using a custom website to collect responses, I distributed a Google Form to family and friends, asking them to anonymously answer a set of sample emotional questions.
After receiving the responses, I organized the data in Google Sheets to identify patterns. I assigned each response category a corresponding color and numerical value, then wrote custom code that translated the emotional inputs into a generative visual output. I refined the exported composition in Adobe Illustrator to align with the thematic direction of the month.
The Final Print
This print combines output produced through written code with a hand-drawn layer that responds to the themes of that month's submissions. Each participant receives the print along with an accompanying card in the mail.
