Ethereal Composting
Hanyong Yang
Advisor: Simone Salvo
Ethereal Composting is an interactive installation rooted in NYC garden ethnography, using a speculative composting machine to visualize how collective care regenerates waste into growth. Merging generative media, participatory art, and computational storytelling, it explores community gardens as models of sustainability and connection, inviting reflection on renewal, self-support, and ecological consciousness in an increasingly digital urban world.
Project Description
Ethereal Composting is an interactive installation emerging from a year-long ethnographic study of New York City’s community gardens. The work explores composting not only as an ecological process but as a metaphor for human interaction, renewal, and care within shared urban spaces. Community gardens—vital sites of grassroots sustainability and social connection—serve as the foundation for this piece, which invites visitors to symbolically transform waste into growth through a speculative composting machine.
Constructed from cork to evoke sustainability and organic materiality, the machine is embedded with a Raspberry Pi, MFRC522 RFID reader, and an internal display screen. Participants insert RFID-tagged waste models—such as banana peels or newspapers—into the machine, triggering site-specific video projections powered by Stable Diffusion and 3D scanning. One participant rotates a handle, tracked by an accelerometer, to simulate compost mixing, physically influencing the projection’s transformation speed. The interaction concludes with the distribution of seed paper, linking symbolic renewal to real-world ecological action.
Blending computational storytelling, generative media, and participatory art, Ethereal Composting bridges digital experience with ecological awareness. Positioned at the intersection of research and speculative design, the work encourages reflection on regenerative systems, mutual support, and the future of urban life in a technologized world.
Technical Details
The installation centers around a cork-built, industrial-style composting machine equipped with a Raspberry Pi, an MFRC522 RFID reader, and an internal display screen. Participants insert RFID-tagged waste models—like banana peels or newspapers—into the machine, triggering corresponding site-specific video projections via the Raspberry Pi. These projections, powered by tools like Stable Diffusion and 3D scanning, reflect the symbolic role of each waste item in its urban context. One participant rotates a handle, tracked by an accelerometer, to simulate compost mixing, directly influencing the projection’s transformation speed. This gesture physically enacts the composting metaphor. The interaction concludes with seed paper distribution, linking digital transformation to real-world renewal.
Research/Context
Ethnographic Research with Professor Margaret Jack on Lower East Side community gardens and culture.
Thesis Advisor: Simone Ava Salvo
Thesis Advisor: Kay Wasil
Research Advisor: Professor Margaret Jack
Special Thanks: The ITP Community, Bill Di Paola, Laura Sewell, Alexx Caceres, Angeles Donoso Macaya, Surya, Aseem Keyal
Organizations:
Museum of Reclaimed Urban Spaces
NYU Special Collections and Archives
NYC Municipal Archives
Literature and Art Reviews:
Gordon Wills, S. (2020). Bottle Cap Mosaic Community Art Project.
Lai, P. W. (2017). Parasitic Temples. Yeren Publishing House.
Martinez, M. J. (2010). Power at the Roots: Gentrification, Community Gardens, and the Puerto Ricans of the Lower East Side. Lexington Books.
Mirror. (2021). Open Garden.
Sinto America. (2019). Largest Bottle Cap Mosaic Art in World.
Stoetzer, B. (2022). Ruderal City: Ecologies of Migration, Race, and Urban Nature in Berlin. Duke University Press.
Zhang, A. Y. (2021). Open Garden.