// SOFTlab | July 2015 | New York, NY
Cumulus is an interactive installation that reacts to sound with light. The cell like structure is meant to create behaviors that mimic the deliberate yet erratic behavior of lightning. The piece is much lighter than the overall volume it occupies. Much like sponge the structure relies on redundancies and connections that cannot be achieved from a grid, giving it a soft cloud like shape. The irregularity of the network like structure imbues the piece with a playful personality as it reacts in unpredictable ways to environmental sound.
Various behaviors were programmed for the piece, each responding to the amplitude and various ranges of surrounding sound. Each time sound in the space reaches a certain volume the piece activates.
The interactivity is achieved through a series of physical and digital systems working together. The structure is made of over 200 acrylic segments connected with over 100 unique 3D printed joints. Inside of the structure is a network of individually addressable LED strands. Overall 70 meters of LEDs were used to activate the whole structure. A processing UI was built to analyse the sound, activate the programmed behaviors, and communicate with Arduino microcontrollers that dispersed signals activating the particular LEDs that corresponded with each segment.
// Comuluse was installed at RAB Gallery Chelsiea, New York. July, 2015.
// Photos: Alan Tansey