In Soul Threads, ballet star Friedemann Vogel embodies the perfection of the marionette only to surpass it, reclaiming the grace Kleist reserved for the puppet.

For Soul Threads, I worked as a visual artist, developing a digital avatar that explores the relationship between human autonomy, movement, and aesthetic beauty. Created from 3D scans of Vogel’s body, the digital double was brought to life through AI-assisted camera tracking, capturing and translating his original movements into a virtual counterpart. Drawing on Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theater, the piece creates a dialogue between the physical dancer and his digital reflection, questioning the boundaries between body and technology, control and freedom, and human expression and artificial presence.