S.01 – Studio Mid-Term
Interactive Light Installation – LLUM BCN
Tutors: Klaus Obermaier, Luis Fraguada
Team: Susannah Mifsud, Shahram Randeria, Serhan Ozgul
Electric Feels is a light installation that was proposed for LLUM BCN 2018. It integrates interactive lighting and soundscapes, immersing the users into an organic environment where nature and technology fuse together to light up a space. With this installation we wanted to make the users feel completely engaged with the space they are interacting with. Understanding how they need to interact but remaining curious about the mechanics behind it. Users enter a dark space that only lights up upon the interaction. The more users there are, the brighter the space becomes, enabling users to interact alone or with others.
LLum will be held in Poblenou, for this reason we chose to take advantage of Iaac’s new building.
Users interact with a conductive living interface, optical fibers light up with each touch. Through this installation users have the ability to design the environment they want to be in. The installation will respond to the number of users accordingly. As more people touch the same plant, the light from the surrounding fibers will intensify.
This location of the installation allows for users to either experience the installation or move around the space and observe the interaction. People enter and exist from the same door, and black out curtain is used to completely darken the space. A camera is placed on one side to take photographs at fixed time-frames. The outside windows will display a projection showing the graphical data obtained from the interaction with the plants.
A plant’s conductivity depends on the quantity of nutrients in its soil. Three plants were tested out in order to understand different signals and optimize the system. It was noticed that different factors affected the interactivity such as the: user, environment, type of contact, power supply, time of day and other nearby conductors. This allowed us to understand what kind plants could be used and how to make the system more efficient with multiple, different plants.
We divided the framework into 16 panels in order to optimize the fabrication and be able to assemble it easily. The installation framework rests on the current structural I-beams and all the electronics are housed on this framework.
The projector is used as a light source as it gives a substantial amount of brightness and allows for all the optical fibers to be fed into it and be mapped out. The framework consists of 1 projector, 16 perforated panels, 4 quadrants with 4 arduinos, 1 plant per panel and 200 4.5M optical fibers per plant.
