# Human-as-Interface: Human Sliders, Human Mouse

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/human-as-interface-human-sliders-human-mouse
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2024-07-31

## Summary

In this 2024 note, Jeanyoon Choi imagines familiar web controls reinterpreted spatially, with the whole body replacing a cursor or fingertip. A toggle becomes standing on the left or right of a room, a slider becomes movement along a corridor, and a two-dimensional pad becomes movement across a floor, each altering surrounding screens or projections. Floor-based tracking would let participants inhabit the control rather than stand outside it. He frames multi-device web artwork as a conversation between a subject and a space.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤의 짧은 글로, 토글·슬라이더·2D 패드 같은 웹 인터페이스 요소를 공간 속에 재해석해 사람의 몸 위치와 움직임이 주변 화면을 바꾸는 입력이 되는 설치를 구상한다.

## Concepts defined

- **Human-as-interface**: Using the human body, tracked in space, as the pointer, slider or toggle of an installation, so that the participant inhabits the control surface rather than operating it from outside.

## Questions this answers

### What is 'Human-as-Interface' by Jeanyoon Choi?

It is a 2024 note proposing that web interface controls such as toggles, sliders and 2D pads be reinterpreted in physical space, with a person's position and movement on the floor acting as the input that changes surrounding screens.

### How can a person's body act as a slider or toggle in an interactive installation?

In Jeanyoon Choi's sketch, standing on the left or right side of a space acts as a toggle, moving along a corridor acts as a slider, and moving across a floor acts as a two-dimensional pad, tracked from the floor.

Topics: bodily interaction, spatial interface, multi-device web artwork, floor tracking, interaction design

## Full text

A person moves through a room, and something changes on the surrounding screens. What if familiar web controls were reinterpreted spatially, with the whole body taking the place of a cursor or fingertip?

A toggle is a boolean relation: the body occupies the left or right side of a space. A slider becomes movement along a corridor. A two-dimensional pad becomes movement across a floor. Each change of position alters a surrounding image or projection.

The body acts as a large finger, but the change in scale matters. The participant is no longer outside a small control surface. They inhabit it. Floor-based tracking could make that relationship legible without relying on the familiar spectacle of a responsive wall projection.

For me, multi-device web artwork is ultimately a conversation between a subject and a space. These controls offer a vocabulary for turning virtual relationships into bodily experience.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.
