LATENT SANDBOX
— An interactive AI installation bringing people together to play

Most AI experiences are solitary, with just one person typing into a void. Latent Sandbox began with a simple question: how can we make something that’s social, tactile, and open-ended?  A space where creativity grows from interaction, not instruction.

The search for a universal, tactile interface led back to a childhood archetype: the sandbox. A familiar space for expression, curiosity, and colaboration. In Latent Sandbox, it got a 2025 tech-boost. A matte black box filled with white kinetic sand became a collaborative canvas, brought to life through an overhead camera, a projector, and a custom web app.

The sandbox transforms into both surface and display. Projected ambient UI elements guides visitors through each phase of play with subtle notifications, glowing edges, shifting tones.

Every minute, the playground dims briefly to capture the sand’s surface. The image is processed live: the LLM as the imagination, describing what it saw; the visual model as the painter, turning that interpretation into a scene.

The result is projected directly back onto the sand, creating a living, tactile composition: a dialogue between human gesture and machine vision.

Created as part of Hypersolid’s Adnight ’25 programme, Latent Sandbox brought dozens of people together to create hundreds of sandscapes. The installation turned a simple material into a collaborative interface, showing how technology can connect people through curiosity rather than complexity.

Credits: Hypersolid Innovation Lab / AdNight Ideation & Sandbox construction