Fortune on Hand
Project info
Using a webcam, Arduino and JavaScript, Fortune on Hand is an installation that generates a poem about one’s fortune based on their own unique palm lines. The machine has a transparent acrylic platform for users to put their right hand on. When the button is pressed, a picture of the palm is taken by the hidden webcam under the platform. After the analysis by JavaScript, a generated poem is printed out that tells the ‘fortune’.
About the work
It is inspired by the great Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, written in the Qing Dynasty, in which the main character Baoyu has a dream about a book in a sky palace called the “Great Void”, where everyone’s fate is written in poetry. I wonder if the development of technology makes people less superstitious, or if technology itself has become a form of superstition.
Exhibitions
- Processing Foundation Day, Shanghai, 2019
- CSPACE, Beijing, 2018
- Jiangsu Television, Nanjing, 2017
- Maker Faire New York, 2017
- ITP Winter Show, New York, 2016
As seen on
- SinoVision
- The Creators Project, VICE
- DFRobot
- Jiangsu Television