# Puppet Show and Will-to-Power

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/puppet-show-and-will-to-power
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2024-07-28

## Summary

A short essay prompted by visitors at the Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima turning projected light in a James Turrell space into an impromptu shadow-puppet show. Jeanyoon Choi reads their pleasure through will to power: a small gesture is amplified into a presence that fills the room. He applies this to multi-device web artwork, where devices extend the participant's body into a digitally augmented space, and argues that the key design question is how an action is amplified, made perceptible elsewhere and answered by the space.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 나오시마 지추 미술관의 제임스 터렐 공간에서 관람객들이 즉흥 그림자 인형극을 하는 모습을 '힘에의 의지'로 읽고, 이를 멀티디바이스 웹 아트워크에서 관객의 작은 동작이 공간 전체로 증폭되는 인터랙션 설계 문제로 연결한다.

## Questions this answers

### What is Jeanyoon Choi's essay 'Puppet Show and Will-to-Power' about?

It describes visitors making shadow puppets in a James Turrell room at the Chichu Art Museum and reads that enjoyment as will to power, the pleasure of seeing one's gesture amplified across a space. Jeanyoon Choi uses it to think about how multi-device web artworks should amplify participants' actions.

### Why might clicking a button be a weak interaction for an immersive installation?

In 'Puppet Show and Will-to-Power', Jeanyoon Choi suggests clicking may be too weak or too familiar to make the link between body and room felt; what matters is how an action is amplified, travels and seems to be answered by the space.

Topics: will to power, multi-device web artwork, interaction design, embodiment, augmented space, amplified gesture

References: [James Turrell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Turrell), [Chichu Art Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichu_Art_Museum), [Naoshima](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoshima), [Will to power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power)

## Full text

In a James Turrell space at the Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, I noticed visitors turning projected light into an impromptu shadow-puppet show. A small hand movement acquired a much larger presence in the room.

I read that pleasure through will to power: the attraction of seeing one’s gesture amplified, echoed and extended into the surrounding space. The shadow makes an otherwise modest action consequential.

Conceptually, a multi-device web artwork can establish a similar conversation. Devices extend the participant’s body, and the participant acts on a digitally augmented environment.

The question is how to give that connection a bodily form within actual technical and spatial constraints. Clicking a button may be too weak or too familiar for some situations. Another gesture might make the relationship between body and room more immediate.

What matters is how the action travels: how it is amplified, how it becomes perceptible elsewhere, and how the space seems to answer it.

---

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.