Mesmer Prism

Till Holzapfel

Mesmer Prism

Mesmer Prism is a writing and systems practice around altered perception, weakly bounded embodiment, and forms that stay legible while they change. I return to how one might live with transformation without giving up coherence: how strange perception can be taken seriously without hardening into dogma, how bodies can stay porous and inhabitable, and how forms can loosen and gather again without dissolving into noise. Plasmatic Multitudes is one name for that inquiry.

Enter the work Publications Contact

Organized surface

Entry points

The work splits between public-facing projects and deeper private notebooks. This section keeps the public edge legible: what is live, what is published, and where each thread currently touches the world.

Current XR research system

Viscereality

A Quest-based bioresponsive VR platform pairing a participant-facing runtime with a Windows operator surface for breath-linked interaction, coherence training, oscillator-driven visuals, and study control.

XR / Biofeedback / Quest / Operator tooling / Research

Research overview Project site Operator app

Writing and design research

Plasmatic Multitudes

A design and writing program on semi-corporeal and weakly bounded bodies, linking avatar embodiment, pain translation, media genealogy, and installation reinterpretation around legible transformation.

Embodiment / XR / Media theory / Interface design

Project overview Public microsite Source library

Writing and conceptual synthesis

SANE

A four-part coupling framework for practice, tools, narrative, and emergent coordination across somaesthetics, technics, social mind, and morphogenesis.

Somaesthetic / Anthropotechnical / Noetic / Emergent

Project overview References

Altered perception and induced vision

Brain Candy

A research-informed non-pharmacological platform for guided state shifts, built around rhythmic stimulation, fractal fluency, immersive framing, and interactive regulation instead of a loose digital-psychedelic pitch.

Cyberdelics / Fractal fluency / Rhythm / VR design

Research overview Project site Public code

Simulated psychedelic vision

Deep Dream

A source-aware review line on DeepDream, hallucination-machine methods, community replication culture, and the narrow conditions under which simulated psychedelic vision can be claimed.

Machine vision / VR / Psychedelic simulation / Provenance

Research overview References

Static motion and perceptual mechanics

Optical Movement Illusions

A mechanism-first archive on peripheral drift, Rotating Snakes, and adjacent static motion illusions, kept close to eye-movement, luminance, and filter-design evidence.

Vision science / Motion illusions / Filters / Psychophysics

Research overview References

Imagery, suggestion, and mechanism

Phenomenological Control

A source-led synthesis on imagery variation, absorption, expectancy, hypnotic suggestibility, and how subjective variation meets physiology, lesion evidence, and newer shared-code findings.

Imagery / Absorption / Suggestion / Meaning-making

Research overview References

Retinal stimulation and patterned light

Fractal Optics

A bounded archive around the Russian fractal-phototherapy line and its retinal, ophthalmic, lighting, and comparator literatures.

Retina / Fractals / VR delivery / Comparator studies

Research overview References

Code and prototyping surface

GitHub and research tooling

The public code surface includes the current Quest runtime, the Windows operator app, browser prototypes, and research tooling that sit behind the writing and systems work.

Repositories / Simulations / Tooling / Infrastructure

GitHub profile Viscereality Companion braincandyapp

Publications and presentations

Selected outputs across immersive systems, psychophysics, breath interaction, and XR communication.

  1. 2026
    Fejer et al. Breathing Space: Spatial Mapping of Breath and Cardiac Biofeedback for Affective State Representation and Coherence Training in Viscereality. AlpCHI 2026 proceedings.
  2. 2025
    Fejer et al. Viscereality: A Bio-responsive VR System for Breath-Based Interactions and Coupled Oscillator Dynamics to Augment Altered States of Consciousness. Mensch und Computer 2025 workshop.
  3. 2025
    Lobser and Holzapfel. Brain Candy: Flicker Light Stimulation in Virtual Reality. Poster presented at AWE 2025, IVRHA 2025, and MindXR 2025.
  4. 2024
    Roebuck Williams et al. Measuring the Limit of Perception of Bond Stiffness of Interactive Molecules in VR via a Gamified Psychophysics Experiment. XR SALENTO 2024 proceedings.

Background

My background moves between cognitive science, HCI, psychophysics, media theory, and research writing. I use writing to stabilize concepts, lineages, and claims, then carry those questions into XR systems, browser simulations, physiological sensing, and embodied prototypes.

Across Plasmatic Multitudes, SANE, Brain Candy, Deep Dream, Optical Movement Illusions, Phenomenological Control, and Fractal Optics, I keep returning to altered perception, weakly bounded bodies, phenomenological variation, and the practical conditions that make strange experience legible without flattening it.

Core strengths

  • Unity and C# for XR and interactive systems
  • Biofeedback, breath interaction, and interoception-oriented design
  • Perception research, psychophysics, and embodied HCI
  • Long-form research writing, source discipline, and conceptual synthesis
  • Weakly bounded embodiment, avatar design, and plasmatic interaction

Current and recent roles

  • VR Developer & Researcher, Viscereality Project
  • Scientific Advisor, Light Clinic
  • Visual Artist / Developer / Researcher, Tactile Visualizer Project
  • Public Outreach & Citizen Science, Intangible Realities Lab

Contact

If you are building something across XR, altered perception, embodiment, research tooling, or interdisciplinary writing and design, I am happy to talk.