Delight
Design Build - Nuit Blanche 2017
Students: Louise Shin, Michelle Friesen, Jonathan Brunath, Kelly Lai, Wayne Bai
Initial design team also included Jean-Paul Guay, Laura Herrera, Agnes Cheng
Sept/29/ 2017
DELIGHT is an interactive light installation where people can experience dynamic movement and an ethereal environment correlated by noise within a space. Based on the frequency of sound in the room, the movement from the suspended orbs will change. When an observer approaches DELIGHT from a distance, the shadows of the moving mechanisms, also known as camshafts, inside the lightbox give a glimpse of the working parts causing the suspended spheres to move. The expressive movement of DELIGHT is primarily explored through the interaction with people and the frequency of sound they produce. This is seen from the illuminated frosted acrylic balls which move in the same formation as that of a sine wave, representing the frequency of the sound. The movement of the balls depends on the volume of ambient noise, and results in more intensive momentum and speed of the orbs the louder the sounds become, and vice versa, thereby creating expressive movement attuned to that of biomimicry and similar responsiveness found in nature.
The resultant effect is a completely responsive ceiling condition of undulating movement that continuously evolves as users create various types of noise in the space. Through its utilization of user input parameters such as the number of people in the room and the sound levels that they produce, DELIGHT is the manifestation of an inclusive design ethos based on the maxim of "One Installation, Many Voices", which represents the collaborative effort required to produce DELIGHT by both the installation designers and users. Just as the design process is driven by the collaboration and incorporation of many different ideas and perspectives into the final overall design, the user experience of DELIGHT is essentially a compilation of the many different user-contributed voices and sounds that are collaborating to create an immense wave of sinusoidal moving light - the visual and kinetic manifestation of their voices. Using this generative process as a metaphor, DELIGHT seeks to explore the nuances of Canadian identity and nationhood; as Canadians, we are a diverse nation of many voices that work together to create a common shared experience
