A Confluence of Collaborations

 

"Open (at the) Source cultivates interaction not only between visitors and the pieces, but between the pieces themselves. Cloud, which is composed of 50 cloudlets that vary in height from two to six feet, sits within a clearing inside Luminescent Forest. Each cloudlet consists of an aluminium honeycomb and an acrylic vessel that contains a Raspberry Pi computer, light sensors, a microphone, multi-color LEDs, and a small speaker. The cloudlets have sentience. They interact individually and collectively with visitors, their environment, and with each other, emitting light and sound in response to the light and sound generated by their surroundings.

 

Luminescent Forest is equally responsive. Trees within the forest light up when approached to reveal the volume of the space, while others actuate NETS 2.0, changing its appearance together with that of the clearing. Sensing its visitors, the forest as a whole can increase and decrease in luminosity, responding to their presence. These reactions evoke awareness of space within the gallery, as the partial views allowed by the forest invite discovery of its clearings and the interactive elements within them. Open (at the) Source is a both the result of collaboration and an ongoing expression of it. The artists and their creations encourage you to immerse yourself in the clouds, get lost in the forest, and learn something along the way."

​

- Open (at the) Source information pamphlet, Moss Center for the Arts

​

​

​

- Created by Paola Zellner, assistant professor of architecture

                      with the collaboration of Dr. Tom Martin, professor of electrical and                             computer engineering

​

- Project Team

                      Architecture Students: Michael Bednar, Mattie Catherman, Kelsey                                 Dressing, Hasheem Halim, Brian Heller, Saron Iasu, Kelsey Margulies,                         Sarah Rege, William Scott

​

                      Creative Technologies Student: George Hardebeck

​

                      Electrical and Computer Engineering: Rachel Gertler

​

- Sponsored by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) and                    the Center for the Arts