SITE
SUN (Houmt Souk)
Interactive Intervention
2-Channel Projection
2025 (site-specific adaptation)
Projected onto the historic façade of St. Joseph’s Church in Houmt Souk, OBK’s Sun was an interactive digital intervention that transformed the mid-19th-century architecture into a canvas for cosmic storytelling. The limestone surface, shaped by Maltese craftsmanship, became a field where art, science, and collective human presence converge.
Across the building, four stellar forms emerged as radiant, energy-rich centers that continually generated shifting fields of color and particles in large-scale, two-channel projections. Three of these luminous bodies anchored high across the twin towers and upper façade were pre-recorded animations. A fourth, positioned above the main entrance, unfolded live in real time, its evolving shape guided by the gestures and movements of passersby, tracked through a Kinect sensor. Each visitor’s presence altered the glowing “sun,” forging a dialogue between cosmic evolution and the energy of collective humanity.
Each animation visualized a narrative of stellar birth, life, and explosive transformation: spirals collide and collapse, echoing the nuclear fusion and supernovae that drive cosmic cycles. Clouds of particles scattered and reformed as energy clusters, recalling galaxies in flux and the catalytic dispersal of heavy elements, the raw matter for new stars, planets, and eventually life. Semi-transparent color layers and thriving currents overlapped and interacted, conjuring the swirling complexity of interstellar dust and nebular storms. “Sun” is not only a poetic rendering of astrophysics; it gestures toward the aspirations of a “Kardashev Type II” civilization, one capable of harnessing the full energy of its parent star. The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using.
In this projection, the audience became an active agent of stellar play and reshaping light, bending cosmic fields, and briefly participating in a rehearsal of futures where human presence resonates on astronomical scales. The interactive “Sun” is a symbolic Dyson sphere in miniature: not an enclosure of a star, but an invitation to imagine humanity’s eventual alignment with stellar forces. “Sun” transformed Houmt Souk’s historical architecture into a living interface, inviting audiences to step into a dialogue between human energy and stellar power. It reminds us that all matter, whether carved into limestone or burning at a star’s core, is bound within the same endless cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth.
By adapting dynamically to the church’s architecture, “Sun” unites sacred space with cosmic speculation. The façade’s dignity, rooted in the island’s Catholic and Maltese heritage, is illuminated as both a vessel of memory and a portal to cosmic possibility. Here, stone becomes starlight; the local becomes galactic; the fleeting gesture of a passerby mirrors the grand cycles of ignition, dispersal, and renewal that shape the universe.
BACKGROUND
OBK is an emerging Tunisian artist whose work unfolds at the vibrant intersection of new technology and human perception. Rooted in the sensory dialogues of movement, frequency, and light, OBK’s interactive installations invite viewers not just to see but to feel, to touch, and to participate in the shifting boundaries of experience.
Based in Tunis, OBK’s journey into art has been largely self-taught, shaped outside formal institutions by resilience, curiosity, and the everyday tension between creative pursuit and life’s demands. This independent approach has fostered a practice defined by experimentation and perseverance, one that infuses improvisation into the precision of interactive media.
OBK employs TouchDesigner, projection mapping, Interactive Media, and Adobe Creative Suite to sculpt immersive, responsive environments.
Trilingual in Arabic, French, and English, OBK navigates diverse cultural and artistic contexts with ease and openness. His dedication goes beyond producing art; it manifests in a continual self-empowerment, a belief that creative expression can and must emerge regardless of constraints. This philosophy shapes each project, transforming light, movement, and technology into tools for sensory revelation and collective discovery.
EXHIBITIONS
2025 Bremen (de), MEDIA ART LAB c/o OPEN SPACE DOMSHOF
2025 Lüdenscheid (de), LICHTROUTEN Festival of Light
2025 Tunis (tn), MEDINA DE LUMIERE The Ramdan Project
2025 Tunis (tn), Night Vision Exhibition
2023 Tunis (tn), Wabi Warehouse
STUDIES
2021 Tunis (tn), Academy of Arts and Creation (APAC): BA Multimedia Studies
BIO
Based in Tunis (tn).
LINKS
portfolio-obk.netlify.app
@omar.san.png
@obk.graphics
FETURED IMAGE
OBK. SEE DJERBA Houmt Souk 2025. Photo: SD25 DOC Collective.
SUPPORT