Proteus: bodies, techniques, worlds

The premise

You don’t watch an animal. You become one, with the body you already have.

Nothing is held in empty hands. Your hands, arms and head are read and become the animal’s; a station holds your body in its posture; an attendant brings the weather and the touch. Every piece teaches its moves in order, one at a time, and ends with your own hands, back in your room.

Movement firstThe change begins in something you do, never in something you watch.
Show only what you controlEvery part of the new body answers to a part of yours.
Mirror firstYou meet the body you’ve become in a shadow or a reflection before you look down.
The apparatus moves with youA reformer, a swing, a rocking saddle: the motion you feel is the motion you see.
Taught, not free playEach gesture is guided and gated, one line at a time.
Always a returnEvery piece gives your hands and your room back.

Mixed-media sculpture: a person in a headset seen from behind, arms spread, feathers growing along the arms into wings; the new wingtips in rust

The film

Ninety seconds: the range of pieces, then four bodies in one room

Headset recordings and Unity renders. Drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Dante’s Inferno and natural history.

Outside

Inside

Rocking saddle · the centaur

Outside

Inside

Wobble stool · the hive

Outside

Inside

Sling, face down · the kingfisher

Outside

Inside

Reformer · the serpent

Outside

Inside

Ball and face pad · Actaeon

Outside

Inside

Hand treadmill · Actaeon, running

Outside

Inside

Table · Actaeon at the surface

Outside

Inside

Balance pad · Laurel, the tree

The suite

Chains of bodies, one station each

One shared engine, many pieces. Each piece is a chain: a sequence of bodies in one world, on one station. Arachne is the frame that joins them.

Piece	Bodies, in order	Station
Water	sardine shoal → tuna → bluefin → great white → orca → blue whale → the fall	bench or swing
The Rise	angler → the fused male → giant squid → one of millions of lanternfish → mermaid	rocking saddle, legs behind
Pond	frogspawn → tadpole → frog → dragonfly nymph → dragonfly → snake	reformer with a dome
Meadow	the tree → ant → bee → hornet ball → queen → swarm	stool, ball, mat
Butterfly	caterpillar → chrysalis → monarch → one of millions	seated
Swan	shadow → lantern egg → cygnet → swan → the flock	wobble stool, ball
Night	owl → hare → bat → moth → wolf; at dawn, the owl again	swing, hand treadmill
Hoof	centaur → the herd → the storm → Pegasus → the stars	rocking saddle
Arachne	the frame: everyone weaving one web, with windows into each piece	all stations

The bodies

Every creature you become, and the move that makes you it

Each creature is sculpted for the engine; shown here as its concept picture.

Water

From a thousand small fish to the great whale

The prototype the suite is judged by. You are a shoal of sardines on your hands, then a tuna, a bluefin, a great white; you are eaten by the orca and become it; then the blue whale, and the whale fall.

The Rise

From the black floor of the sea to its ceiling

On the rocking saddle, lying forward with your legs behind: the floor becomes the sea and you sink to the black. As the angler your lure draws prey with gentle nods; you fuse into a great female; as the squid you jet and ink to escape the whale; you kick up with the lanternfish; at dawn your legs are a tail over the reef. Look up, and the sea lets you go.

Pond and lake

Lives that change their whole form in the water

Mixed-media sculpture: a mute swan and her cygnet on the water

The Pond lives on the reformer: the frog’s life from spawn at your fingertips to the chorus; the dragonfly nymph that hunts the tadpole, climbs a reed and emerges; the snake. Swan is its own piece on the lake, from a shadow on your wall to the lantern egg, the cygnet and the flock.

Meadow, Butterfly, Arachne

Small lives, and the many they make

Mixed-media sculpture: a wasp spider and the small male on her web

Meadow joins the tree’s growth, the ant at its roots, the bee in its blossom, the hornet ball, the queen and the swarm. The Butterfly is a monarch’s whole life at eighteen times scale. In Arachne your hand becomes a wasp spider that weaves the web whose windows open onto every other piece.

Night and Hoof

Hunters, the hunted, and the horse

Mixed-media sculpture: a wolf and a hare

Mixed-media sculpture: a guest in a headset astride the Rodeo Core, leaning into flight, becoming Pegasus as wings grow along their own arms

Night is one chain: the owl at a window, the hare, the bat, the moth and the wolf, each the kin of the one before it eats; dawn brings the owl back. Hoof is the centaur’s day on the rocking saddle: the herd, the storm, Pegasus and the stars. Actaeon’s stag and hounds run through both.

Techniques of embodiment

How your hands, arms and head become the animal

Mixed-media sculpture: a hand whose fingers stretch into spider legs, a wasp spider forming on its back

Your fingers, lengthened, are the spider’s legs

Each finger is stretched one and a half times along its own joints, thumb included, and extra legs echo your fingers a beat behind: an extension you steer by moving your own hand. The bat gets the same, four long fingers and a free thumb.

Engine still: the hand becoming a spider in Arachne — In the engine: the hand becoming a spider in Arachne.

Mixed-media sculpture: a hand shaped as a snake’s head, the forearm becoming its body

Your hand is the serpent; you draw yourself out of its skin

Fingers the upper jaw, thumb the lower: open the hand to open the mouth, snap to bite, pinch to flick the tongue. To shed, take the snout in your other fist and draw the hand back through it.

Mixed-media sculpture: an arm drawn back through a fist, a papery snakeskin sleeve left behind — The shed, felt as a sleeve drawn off the arm. Proposed

Engine still: the shed skin standing empty — In the engine: the empty husks stay standing.

Mixed-media sculpture: two hands shaped as hounds’ heads, a pack running out from them

Your hands are the hounds’ heads; point, and the pack runs

Fingers the muzzle, wrist the ears, forearm the neck. Drop the thumb to open the jaw and the pack bays; point to send it; sweep your head to catch a scent. Then you are the stag, and they hunt you.

Engine still: the world seen through a hound’s eyes — Hound sight: yellow-grey, the prey glowing.

Mixed-media sculpture: hands wreathed in bees, a stream of bees shooting from a fingertip to a chicory flower

Each hand a cloud of bees; a pointed finger sends them

Open fingers loosen the cloud, a fist packs it; shake the hands to fly. Point one finger and its foragers shoot out to a flower; fold it and they come home. Rock your hips on the stool and the waggle dance tells the hive where.

Engine still: fingers becoming chicory petals — In the engine: fingers becoming chicory petals.

Mixed-media sculpture: a fist wreathed in sardines, and palms pressed together as a bluefin tuna

A fist is a ball of fish; pressed palms are a tuna

A fist balls the shoal, spread fingers scatter it, the thumb snaps as the tuna’s jaw. Press your palms together for the bluefin and swing them for its tail. The shark is your right hand, left arm and head at once; the whale is your whole body, its song answering your dive.

Engine still: hands becoming fish — In the engine: hands becoming fish.

Mixed-media sculpture: arms spread with flight feathers along them

Spread your arms: they are the wings, and they fly you

A beat is both wrists sweeping down together; arms held spread glide; one hand lower banks; the head’s pitch dives. Feathers grow along your own arms: owl, swan, kingfisher. As Pegasus, the saddle’s rock is the wingbeat.

Engine still: wings growing from your arms — Wings growing from your arms.

Engine still: Pegasus’s wing opening from the arm — Pegasus’s wing opening.

Mixed-media sculpture: a person lying forward, an angler’s glowing lure arching from the brow

Your head is the animal’s head; its senses ride on it

The angler’s lure grows from your brow and gentle nods twitch it; a lunge strikes. The owl is all head, tilting to listen. The swan’s neck rises from below your eyes. Never a puppet seen from outside: first person, always.

Engine still: the lure’s glowing bulb in front of your eyes in the deep — The lure’s bulb, in front of your eyes in the deep.

Every body has its own move, taught one at a time

Free play is weak. Every gesture gets a guide line and a step in an ordered, gated sequence.

Mixed-media sculpture: frog embryos at each fingertip, a hand waving as a tadpole’s tail

Mixed-media sculpture: hands folded under the chin as a dragonfly nymph’s mask, then striking

Mixed-media sculpture: hands hooked as owl talons closing on a mouse

Mixed-media sculpture: lengthened fingers with a bat’s membrane to the hip

Mixed-media sculpture: a raised forearm casting a swan’s shadow on the wall

You see the body you have become where it falls or is reflected

Swan begins as a hand-shadow on your real wall: forearm up, wrist bent, fingertips to thumb. Pools are mirrors: the centaur in the brook, the owl in the water, the ant in a dew drop. In Arachne, the tarantula you are is seen only in the mirror. Mirror first, then the body.

Engine still: the centaur’s reflection in the brook — The centaur in the brook.

Engine still: you as a spider in the bronze mirror — You, as a spider, in the bronze mirror.

Mixed-media sculpture: a person in a headset clicking their tongue, rings of sound in rust lighting a dark room, moths, an attendant in the doorway

Senses · Sound you make

Click your tongue, and your room appears only where the sound reaches

The bat sees by its own voice: a tongue click sends a slowed shell of sound through your scanned room, lighting what it touches. Click faster for the hunting buzz, and the moths slow.

Engine still: a click lighting your room in the dark — Sound travels at nine metres a second, so you can watch it go.

Other voices you use: hoot, and the owl’s mate answers; say your name, and a stag’s bellow follows your voice; hum to pipe as the queen bee.

Listening with the head, feeling with the hands

Turn toward a sound and it lights; sweep a feeler and the trail glows

Mixed-media sculpture: a person tilting their head, a glowing point where a sound is

Mixed-media sculpture: a stag’s ears turned toward a sound in the wood

Mixed-media sculpture: index fingers as antennae leaving glowing scent trails

Each animal’s way of sensing, and what you do to use it

Animal	What you sense	What you do
Bat	your room, only where your sound reaches	click your tongue; click faster to buzz
Owl	a light where each sound is; parallax	tilt and sway your head; hoot
Stag	two-colour sight, motion at the edges	turn to small sounds; say your name
Hound	yellow-grey sight, scent plumes	sweep your head into the scent
Ant	glowing scent trails; ants feeling yours	sweep your index fingers as feelers
Frog	still things grey; movers stay bright	keep still
Dragonfly	the world slowed to your speed	hunt in flight
Monarch, bee	ultraviolet nectar guides in the flowers	look, and fly to the glow
Serpent	windows tasted into your room	pinch to flick the tongue

The worlds

Every world opens out of your own room

Every piece begins in your room, crosses a threshold, and ends back in it. Scale is one of Proteus’s three axes, with time and multiplicity: the paradise is drawn at a horse’s size; the ant’s grass towers; the milkweed hangs like trees.

The sea

Your room floods; the sea opens; the deep gives way to the reef

Engine still: Snell’s window, the surface seen from below — Snell’s windowThe surface from below

Engine still: the school of fish — The schoolWater

Engine still: dolphins over the reef at dawn — The reef at dawnThe Rise

Land, at every scale

Paradise for the horse; grass as tall as trees for the ant

Engine still: the centaur herd on the paradise plain — The paradise plainHoof

Engine still: the comb corridor of the hive — The comb corridorMeadow

Engine still: a dew drop mirror and a gold scent trail — Grass at ant scaleMeadow

Engine still: the owl’s moonlit meadow — A moonlit meadow of dead oaksNight

Engine still: the laurel grove in winter — The tree’s yearMeadow

Engine still: the milkweed meadow at butterfly scale — Milkweed at eighteen timesButterfly

Night, water, shell, stars

Engine still: moonlit reeds on the pond — The pond at nightPond

Engine still: the bat’s dusk climb — Dusk at 900 metresNight

Engine still: the serpent’s tongue tasting your room — The hollow under the rootsPond

Engine still: inside the jade chrysalis — Inside the chrysalisButterfly

Engine still: a window in the web onto elsewhere — The web and its windowsArachne

Engine still: the Great Square of Pegasus in the stars — The starsHoof

Apparatus

One room of stations, an attendant beside each

Each piece has a station that holds the body in the animal’s posture and moves with it: the apparatus as congruent motion. Postures are read from the head and hands alone.

Concept picture of the studio: a guest prone on a ball, an attendant, a curved treadmill, a face-cradle bench, a wobble stool, a bowl of water, a feather and a window frame — Concept picture of the studio.

The rocking saddle

Rocked by you, motor off: hooves astride, a tail legs-behind

Mixed-media sculpture: a person lying forward on the saddle, legs together behind

Concept picture: a guest on the rocking saddle, a horse’s tail behind them, an attendant beside

Reformer, swing, stool and ball

Glide, hang, wobble: each station moves the way its animal does

Mixed-media sculpture: a person prone on a dome on the reformer’s long box

Mixed-media sculpture: a person face down in a suspension sling over a hand treadmill

Mixed-media sculpture: a person on a wobble stool and a person prone over an exercise ball

Which station holds which bodies

Station	Pieces	Posture and motion
Rocking saddle	Hoof, the Rise	astride, rocking; or lying forward, legs behind
Reformer	Pond: frog, dragonfly, snake	prone on the dome; the carriage glides
Swing, sling	Night, Water	seated or face down; a hand treadmill
Wobble stool	Swan, Meadow’s bee, Butterfly	seated; the rock is the waddle or the dance
Exercise ball	Actaeon, the ant, Swan’s dive	prone in a ring base with a face pad
Mat, balance pad	Meadow’s tree	standing, rooted
Table	Actaeon, Myrmidons	palms planted at elbow height

Physical augmentation

The attendant’s instruments: heat, cold, wind, rain and touch

Holding something in empty tracked hands doesn’t translate into anything felt. So every hold gets a real prop or a touch, brought by an attendant on a cue built into the piece, or it is dropped.

Weather

Rain, wind, heat and cold, brought by hand on cue

Mixed-media sculpture: an attendant holding a tennis racquet hung with ball chains over a seated participant’s back

Mixed-media sculpture: a fan and a mister aimed at a guest

Mixed-media sculpture: a heat lamp at a participant’s back and a cool damp cloth on the forearms

Touch

Feathers, water on the head, the tail bound: the body told it has changed

Mixed-media sculpture: an attendant brushing a feather along a forearm, holding a horsehair whisk

Mixed-media sculpture: a wire scalp massager drawn over a participant’s head

Mixed-media sculpture: an attendant binding a prone participant’s legs together with cloth

Creatures you can feel Proposed

Prey that is warm, moths that brush you, a coat, a skin to shed

Mixed-media sculpture: felt moths hanging on threads from a wand, brushing a participant’s hands and cheek

Mixed-media sculpture: a warm fur pouch shaped like a mouse placed in cupped, hooked hands

Mixed-media sculpture: a fur throw laid across a person on all fours over a ball

Mixed-media sculpture: a snakeskin sleeve peeled from the arm

Next · Hoof, after the herd In development

You become the storm, and hunt your own herd

You suffered the storm as a centaur; now you are the storm, and your former herd runs from you, never struck. The growth is slow and level; the lightning keeps its limits, never a strobe. Felt: the fan stops as you rise, the heat lamp flares at each strike, a heavy blanket at the end, as cloud.

Mixed-media sculpture: a guest in a headset astride the Rodeo Core in driving rain, becoming the centaur as a horse’s body and tail grow back from their hips

Mixed-media sculpture: the participant growing huge into the cloudbank, the herd tiny below

Mixed-media sculpture: looking down at hands become thunderheads

Mixed-media sculpture: an arm raised overhead gathering a bolt

Mixed-media sculpture: a bolt hurled from the clouds, centaurs fleeing below

Mixed-media sculpture: a breath becoming wind and rain, an attendant with a fan

Mixed-media sculpture: an attendant laying a heavy blanket over the participant

Mixed-media sculpture: a rainbow over the washed plain, the herd returning

Paint the rainbow, fly through it, light the night with a bow

Mixed-media sculpture: an arm sweeping a rainbow across the sky, an attendant drawing a silk scarf along it

Mixed-media sculpture: the rainbow settled over the washed plain

Mixed-media sculpture: first person as Pegasus, your own arms grown into wings, reaching into the rainbow

Mixed-media sculpture: the centaur archer drawing a bow at dusk

Mixed-media sculpture: an arrow becoming a star

Mixed-media sculpture: the constellations of Pegasus and Sagittarius over the sleeping herd

Engine still: looking up through the sea’s surface at the light

The return

Every piece ends with your own hands, back in your room

The change runs back to nothing, your hands are yours again, and your room returns. A peace sign with both hands, held, stops any piece at any moment.

Every change is a gradual blend, never instant.
The guest’s stop gesture and the operator’s stop work everywhere.
If hand tracking is lost, the body holds while the world carries on.
Nothing identifying is logged, and nothing leaves the headset.

Now

New Frame, 22 November 2026

Four guests in headsets at once, each on an apparatus, each undergoing a metamorphosis, every guest facing a central pool. The dramaturgy draws on Ovid, by way of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses.

4guests transforming at once, each on a physical apparatus

9pieces in the suite, from the sardine shoal to the stars

1shared engine, reading only your hands and head

Made with

Unity 6 for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, with hand and head tracking only: no controllers. Creatures sculpted with Meshy; voice and sound with ElevenLabs. The mixed-media sculpture pictures (beads, feathers, felt, velvet, marble) were made with an image model from the talk's scene sketches; the concept pictures of creatures and stations likewise. Engine stills are captured from the pieces themselves.