2018
Proteus 1.0
Modulating Matter with Intuitive Interaction
An early experiment in the modulation of ferrofluid patterns through a robotic interface responsive to real-time face tracking.
Artistic research project
Proteus
An evolving artistic research project expressed through interactive installations, digitized matter, gaze, neural interfaces, and mixed intelligences.
Since 2018, Proteus has developed through a series of exhibitions, prototypes, and site-responsive installations exploring how material behavior, computation, perception, and spatial experience can be brought into dynamic relation.
Project
An artwork, a research trajectory, and a material inquiry.
Proteus is an ongoing body of work by Maria Smigielska and CompMonks investigating how matter, machine intelligence, and embodied interaction can shape one another. Across its different versions, the project has engaged ferrofluid, robotics, face tracking, gaze tracking, brain-computer interfaces, reaction-diffusion systems, reinforcement learning, and distributed web-based interaction.
Emerging between installation, interface, experiment, and environment, Proteus treats artistic form as a site of inquiry: a way to test how intelligence may be sensed, distributed, modulated, and spatialized. The work aims to remain sensorial and spatial while articulating a clear artistic research trajectory through successive iterations.
Material intelligence
Digitized matter
Human–machine co-modulation
Gaze and attention
Brain-computer interaction
Generative systems
Spatial interaction
Distributed online/offline participation
Current iteration
Proteus 4.1
Contemplating in a Cloud (versioning to confirm)
Proteus 4.1 extends the project into a distributed and modular spatial configuration, pairing a web-based interaction interface with a physical installation composed of screens, reflective surfaces, and metallic structures. Interaction unfolds across personal mobile devices and exhibition space, connecting remote and situated forms of attention within a shared visual environment.
Drawing on the internet’s distributed infrastructure as well as earlier architectural imaginaries of mobile and proteinic forms, this iteration stages the work as both installation and networked system. Its visual language is shaped by digitized ferrofluid behavior, reflective metal surfaces, and a spatial logic of scattering, mirroring, and convergence.
Evolution
A sequence of transformations rather than a single fixed work.
Each iteration shifts the project’s technical setup, perceptual logic, and research focus, moving from robotic modulation and face tracking to closed-loop machine learning systems, neural interfaces, and distributed online participation.
2018
Proteus 2.0
Modulating Matter with Mixed Intelligences
A closed-loop installation in which human attention and machine learning jointly shaped the behavior of ferrofluid patterns.
2019–2020
Proteus 2.5
A further development of the project’s display system, fabrication logic, and exhibition form through new technical and spatial refinements.
2021–2022
Proteus 3.0
Digitizing Matter with Mixed Intelligences
A reaction-diffusion system acts as a computational surrogate for ferrofluid, opening the project toward generative simulation and reinforcement learning.
2023
Proteus 3.5
Contemplating in a Cloud
Introduces EEG sensing and brain-computer interaction, linking neural activity, concentration, and material transformation within an immersive portal-like space.
2023–2024
Proteus 4.0
Shifts from a single-site interaction model toward a distributed web-based format, using personal devices as points of entry into the work.
2024
Proteus 4.1
A modular, non-site-specific installation that brings together mobile gaze-based interaction, distributed infrastructure, and reflective spatial staging.
Selected exhibitions
Shown across contemporary art, media art, and research contexts.
- 2024Ars Electronica Festival “HOPE”, Linz
- 2024ESC “Who Is Playing With Us?”, Graz
- 2024Art Proxima, Xpanse, Abu Dhabi
- 2024Laboral Centro de Arte, Gijón
- 2023Kontejner / Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
- 2023Copernicus Science Centre, Warsaw
- 2022BioMedia, ZKM, Karlsruhe
- 2020Meta.Morf X, Trondheim Kunstmuseum
- 2019Lab30, Augsburg
- 2018Ars Electronica Festival “Error”, Linz
Publications and press
Artistic output in dialogue with discourse and publication.
Selected publication
Proteus 3.0: Reinforcement learning for intuitive interaction with digitized matter
Maria Smigielska, Pierre Cutellic · ISEA, Paris, 2024
- Designboom
- Metalocus
- Parametric Architecture
- Digital Trends
- Mashable
Credits
Authored by Maria Smigielska and CompMonks, with project-specific collaborators across versions.
Full credits will be structured per iteration, separating authorship, software development, fabrication, production, curatorial support, institutional frameworks, and partners. This prototype keeps the authorship line visible and the detailed credit architecture ready for expansion.
Contact