Table of Contents Show
Listen this Article:
Description
Belief Engines is an interactive sculptural system that examines belief as a spatial, relational, and attentional phenomenon.
Rather than treating belief as a fixed opinion or internal statement, the work frames belief as an orientation; an operative structure that organizes perception, judgment, and identity.
The sculpture measures physical proximity and translates distance into generative visual states.
As a viewer approaches, a suspended human figure becomes increasingly coherent; as distance increases, the figure fragments into abstraction.
Through this interaction, belief is rendered not as a declaration of truth, but as a dynamic process that intensifies through proximity and sustained engagement.
Conceptual Framework
Beliefs are rarely encountered as discrete objects.
They function instead as background conditions, partially visible frameworks that shape what is noticed, what is ignored, and what appears meaningful or plausible.
Across philosophy and cognitive science, belief is understood less as a static mental content than as an orientation toward how the world is taken to be.
Belief Engines adopts this orientation based understanding.
The work does not solicit explicit statements of belief; it registers how bodies position themselves in relation to the sculptural system.
Belief becomes an embodied posture.
An act of approaching or withdrawing, through which epistemic commitment is enacted spatially rather than verbally.
Distance, typically understood as an architectural or optical property, is repurposed as an epistemic metric.
Proximity corresponds to coherence and stability; withdrawal produces ambiguity and fragmentation.
In this way, belief appears as a graded structure, strengthened through attention rather than argument alone.
Form, Identity, and the Body
At the center of the generative imagery is a suspended human figure.
This figure does not function as a portrait of the viewer, but as a diagram of identity under belief.
Psychological and computational models describe belief systems as networks that strive for internal coherence while remaining responsive to social and environmental pressures.
Identity, within this framework, emerges as a negotiated and provisional structure.
The floating body materializes this instability.
Its coherence is contingent upon proximity and engagement.
As attention intensifies, the figure stabilizes; as distance increases, it dissolves.
Identity is presented not as an inherent essence, but as a relational formation maintained through sustained orientation.
Attention Architecture
Belief may be understood as attention extended over time; a stabilized pattern of salience that renders certain narratives familiar and others peripheral.
Contemporary media environments actively structure attention through interfaces, defaults, and incentives, shaping conviction through repetition and proximity rather than explicit persuasion.
Belief Engines makes this process explicit.
The sculpture tracks bodily allocation of attention in space rather than articulated belief statements. Lingering, approaching, or oscillating near thresholds becomes a form of epistemic labor, revealing belief as an emergent property of an attention-structuring system.
In contrast to persuasive technologies that operate invisibly, the work exposes the contingency of what is revealed.
Representational clarity depends on spatial commitment, rendering belief perceptible as a function of proximity.
Material and Fabrication
The sculpture is fabricated using 3D-printed PLA bioplastic, introducing a tension between synthetic precision and biological association.
The organic morphology, resembling shells or embryonic growths, positions belief as a living structure rather than a rigid framework.
This material logic resonates with self-organizing models of cognition, in which beliefs and actions co-evolve to maintain viable states within changing environments.
The sculptural body houses a computational process that mirrors biological regulation: sensing, updating, and stabilizing a relational pattern through feedback.
System and Interaction
The work employs an ESP32 microcontroller paired with a time of flight laser distance sensor.
Physical distance is measured in real time and mapped to a sequence of pre-generated generative visual states depicting a transitional human figure.
The central module is magnetically attached and can be detached, powered independently via USB, and operated as a standalone element.
This modularity reflects the dual nature of belief:
As embedded infrastructure and as portable conviction, extractable from its supporting architecture.
Collective Context
Although experienced individually, Belief Engines gestures toward collective belief dynamics.
Social models describe belief systems as emergent properties of interacting agents, shaped by internal coherence and social conformity.
Installed within a shared space, the sculpture allows patterns of approach and hesitation to become visible, rendering belief as both personal orientation and social behavior.
The work functions as a micro-laboratory for examining conviction within contemporary belief ecologies, where proximity, familiarity, and repeated exposure play decisive roles in shaping what becomes credible or real.
Conclusion
Belief Engines is not a didactic exposition of belief theory, but an apparatus for experiencing the gap between self and conviction.
Through a limited set of materials and mechanisms, the work transforms distance into a philosophical instrument.
By rewarding proximity with coherence, the sculpture stages belief as something that consolidates under attention while remaining contingent and revisable.
In revealing, rather than concealing, the mechanics by which proximity becomes conviction, Belief Engines invites reflection on how belief is enacted through orientation, distance, and attention.
Mediums
Title: Belief Engines
Year of Creation: 2025
Dimensions: 40 x 15 x 12 cm
Materials: ESP32-S3, VL53 Time of Flight Distance sensor, PLA, Aluminium
Technologies: algorithmically generated visuals, microcontrollers, electronic components & sensors, programming in Node.js, C++, 3D printing.
Related: The Architecture of Human Attention, The Psychology of Value, The Illusion of Choice, The Physics of Meaning
References
The following references provided a foundational basis for the conceptual development of this work.
- Albarracín, M., & Pitliya, R. J. (2022). The nature of beliefs and believing. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 981925.
- Rodriguez, N., Bollen, J., & Ahn, Y.-Y. (2016). Collective dynamics of belief evolution under cognitive coherence and social conformity. PLOS ONE, 11(11), e0165910.
- Schwitzgebel, E. (2006). Belief. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
