interactive art | Dan Corson

Edmonton, Alberta Canada

17'h x 4' x5.6'w. Fiberglass, steel, LED's Sensors, GFRC

17’h x 4′ x5.6’w. painted fiberglass, steel, LED’s, sensors, GFRC

The name of the pieces are “Nepenthes.” The name is derived from a Greek magical potion that would cause the drinker to be relieved from or induce forgetfulness of pain, grief, or sorrow. I hope these sculptures might provide a brief respite from a hectic daily life, transporting us briefly somewhere else. Paisleyi is the botanic latin version of Paisley, named after the founder of the Edmonton Fringe Festival- and name of the community wherein the sculptures are located.

Nepenthes is also the name of a family of carnivorous plants. Beautiful, quirky, unusual, weird. The fascinating tropical pitcher plants, or “monkey cups,” collect water in their leaf vases. The plant water has an enzyme in it that helps dissolve insects (and sometimes small animals) that find their way into the cups, providing fertilizer for the plants that normally live in infertile locations. The shapes of the sculptures are inspired by the shape of a variety of Nepenthes and celebrates the wonderful diversity of Paisley’s colourful neighborhood.

Monochromatic by daytime, this family of sculptures take on a completely different character at night with the addition of dynamic LED programming.

There are a number of randomly occurring lighting programs that provide very slow changes throughout the evening. It is designed so that people driving by will not see the changes in patterns, yet if they drive by 10 minutes later they will see a different aspect to the project. When people enter the sculpture, integrated sensors pick up the motion and trigger a series of much more animated sequences.

The molds for these sculptures were originally developed for the Nepenthes Davis Street Project for TRIMET/City of Portland, Oregon. The Regional Arts and Culture Council has kindly provided permission for a re-envisioning of the original project for the Brookfield Residential neighborhood of Paisley in Edmonton. You can see the original project here: Nepenthes

Special thanks to all of our great project partners:
Brookfield Residential, Edmonton (funder and site work)
Heavy Industries (fabrication)
PMCS (LED engineering, and programming)

video of some of the dynamic LED sequences

Rivers Edge Park, Council Bluffs Iowa

Riverfront Park, Council Bluffs Iowa, 2013. Lawn, robotic lighting fixtures, dynamic pattern projectors, Infra red camera, doplar radar sensors, custom interactive software and hardware

Lawn, robotic lighting fixtures, dynamic pattern projectors, Infrared camera, doplar radar sensors, custom interactive software and hardware.

Originally inspired by the great European baroque knot gardens, this massive 5-acre Great Lawn is the canvas for a giant ever-changing light environment that echoes patterns of the past and updates them for the future. Utilizing powerful dynamic and robotic lighting fixtures, the lawn is activated every half hour after dark.
Within each sequence, there is a “show” mode and an “interactive” mode. Please see below for more details.

Some of the light patterns are inspired by slowly spinning “ice flows” as they break up and rotate while move down the river.

A dance of rotating white lines breaks up the lawn in geometric patterning inspired by 18th century French formal gardens.

Each pattern is dynamic: slowly spinning, zooming in or out and changing sharpness and color

Chasing rainbow colors for a few seconds indicates it is time for the “interactive” part of the event. Come onto the lawn and the lights will play with you.

In addition to the choreographed sequences, there is a complex interactive lighting component to the project that will track and “play” with people through a series of simple intuitive games as part of every “event”. Tracked by infra-red cameras and radar detectors, the locations and gestures of the people on the lawn in front of the stadium seating will control the lighting in some instances, and in others it will track them similar to follow spots at an ice skating event.

INTERACTIVE COMPONENTS
1. SENSING: When the general illumination park lights are on, radar detectors sense motion in the corners of the park and direct the robotic fixtures into those areas projecting individually selected spinning patterns.
2. GAMES: The field covered by a chasing rainbow of colors indicates it is time for the beginning of the interactive game section. Each half hour “show” has 2 randomly selected games that play for 3 or 6 minutes.

Each half hour event plays 2 randomly selected games:

The games are:
a. Stealing Dorothy Hamill’s Spotlight: 4 robotic lights randomly select one person to follow in on the field. The game is to figure out how to trick the robot and steal the spotlight from the person selected.
b. Hot-Cold: a blue spotlight is turned on in the field. As people move towards the spotlight the closest person to the spotlight is tracked and their position changes the color of the spotlight- changing the color from blue through all the different colors until it turns red when you jump onto the spotlight. Once you are on it, the “prize” is flashing the entire lawn through a series of colors before throwing the spotlight into another random location and starting again.
c. Cat Laser Pointer: a small green spot intelligently dances and doges the people who attempt to catch it.
d. Yellow Spot Blue Spot: out of all the people on the lawn, the computer selects random 2 people giving each a different colored spotlight. Can you trick the computer into switching followspot colors as it follows you around the field?

Easter Eggs: the name originates from secret animations and videos incorporated into software that are only revealed if you know the secret keystrokes. Our “Easter Eggs” are a series of gestures that will set off some brief visual “prizes” during the interactive game sequence times for “people in the know”.
a. Jump: if more than 55% of the people on the active lawn area jump up and down together then it will cause all the lights in the field to blink on and off like people jumping.
b. Flash Mob: if more than 55% of the people on the active lawn run in and huddle then break out- it will cause all the lights on the lawn to “go crazy” and swirl around for a few seconds.
c. Run for the River: if there more than 55% of the people on the active lawn begin at the curving sidewalk and at one time run towards the river, the whole lawn will ripple in colors of blue, white and teal.