S.AI – Advanced Programming & Physical Computing – Design LLUM BCN  

Term 2 –  MAA second year  2017-2019 and MAA-Advanced Interaction Curriculum 2018-2019
Tutors: Luis Fraguada and Cristian Rizzuti

The Llum BCN festival is organized by the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and takes place during the month of February to coincide with the Festival de Santa Eulalia. 2019 Marks the 8th edition of Llum BCN.
Llum BCN is a festival of lights. For three nights a part of the city is selected as the backdrop for light installations by professionals and academic institutions. IAAC has participated in Llum BCN since 2014, marking this the 6th edition where IAAC has been asked to participate.

Llum is organized into a series of urban routes which include installations from professionals and institutions. The locations for these installations are selected and assigned by the ICUB. Until 2017, Llum BCN took place in the Gotico neighborhood of Barcelona. This was very special since the spaces assigned were usually not places where the public was allowed to enter. There were also major restrictions on how something could be installed, because many times the installation location would be adjacent to ancient ruins. In 2018, the ICUB decided to move the Llum Festival to Poble Nou (IAAC’s neighborhood due to the size of the festival. Gotico streets were just too narrow to handle the influx of tourists and festival goers at the same time. The impact of the move to Poble Nou was very positive. Suddenly the restrictions due to ensuring the preservation of Gotico, the scale, the narrow streets, etc, were all gone, making way for much bigger, much more interesting experiences.
IAAC has always used the Llum BCN Festival as a platform for interaction research, particularly “massive interaction” and the study of a crowd of people interacting while understanding their role in the interactive system. This year we will continue this research into massive interaction while practicing Visual Programming and Physical Computing.

IAAC Projects of the last editions of LLUM can be visualised at these links:
2014: Data Net
2015: Pluja de Llum
2016: Llum Tafanera
2017: Brillen en la foscor
2018: Playball!