LIGHT

MOTION

PROCESS

2013NUIT BLANCHE INSTALLATIONS

From sunset at 6:51 pm on Saturday, October 5 to sunrise on Sunday, October 6, Toronto was transformed by more than 112 art projects for the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013 festival. Four of these installations were conceived and realized by teams associated with the Department of Architectural Science. Each team, consisting of students, faculty, and external collaborators, worked independently to create these installations. The four projects were designed with the intention of engaging with their audience by reshaping their spatial, temporal, and even emotional experience. Ad Astra, [R]evitaLight, the Hybrid Globe, and Light_Scape, represent distinct approaches to the challenge of public engagement through art and design.

Light, Motion, Process is a reflection on these four projects and their resultant artifacts, which were brought to life concurrently but independently under one roof in the Department of Architectural Science. Despite being objects that operated discreetly on the night of the festival, it is interesting now, months later, to bring them together in the Paul H. Cocker Gallery. As much as these projects were informed by different intentions, they are imbued with a host of similarities. Light and motion figure as prominent themes across all four projects, as do the processes that each team engaged in while giving form to their ideas. All in some significant way make use of digital technologies to sense their environment and respond to audiences.

This is a processual exhibit, inviting its audience to enter a landscape of tests, experiments, conceptual propositions measured against technical solutions, and resolution through the iterative act of making - all integral steps in the process of collective design.

The space of the Paul H. Cocker Gallery has been reconceived to showcase both the experience of ‘living through’ an attenuated design process and to present a sense of the experience of the Nuit Blanche event without replicating the installations. The ‘vestibule’ showcases the design timeline of each project, arranged from right to left, starting from November 2012, when each team began its work. The timelines lead the audience toward the present where, beyond the curtain lies the collective ‘work-space’ of the projects. This display is curated to present fragments of the original installations, along with other fragments, scrap objects and prototypes that may initially appear to be a random collection of ‘stuff.’

The common elements that run across all four projects are not explicitly described, giving visitors of Light, Motion, Process a chance to engage with these projects in a new way and discover underlying overlaps.Jan 27 - Feb 24, 2014

Ad Astra, a latin phrase meaning “to the stars”, represents the curiosity we have for what is beyond our earth, which we cannot reach or fully understand. Ad Astra connects the user to this relationship and allows one to explore their physical actions as a part of our infinite world, both as a part of the spectacle and as the actors that transform its configuration. Here, the forces of our physical reality are identified within the user, which is that matter cannot be created or destroyed, and any action we perform has a consequence or reaction.

Upon entering the space, one is faced with an infinite reflection of lights that create an endless spectrum of white glowing balls. Users are drawn to the silver coloured balls that once touched, play an instrumental portion of a melody and flicker the surrounding white balls. Once another silver ball is touched, or up to all 8 of them at once, the melody simultaneously plays in its full orchestration. In a direct correspondence with the environment and the other visitors, the users actions create the visual and auditory experience of the space.

The development process of Ad Astra was always driven by the intention of creating an immersive, interactive environment that allowed users to explore a responsive relationship to space. Ad Astra began as a way of interacting with levels of luminosity by being able to control the levels of light output through a dimming device, both as a direct physical interaction by pulling a string, and an indirect physical interaction by the attachment of a

Ad Astra

Light_Scape

string to another module, creating an unintentional reaction. The idea between interaction and reaction grew through the development of the full scale installation. The design evolved into an advanced system incorporating sensors and arduinos to achieve the interaction, and a sound system to acheive the reaction, which became the main feature of our final design.

DESIGN TEAMKevin Pu, Ryan Giuricich, Jamie Kwan, Setareh Shams, Neveen Abdel-Aal, Sandra Wojtecki, Helena Skonieczna, Steven Biersteker, Jad Joulji

EngineerMarcelle-Andree Carneiro

Music and SoundMike Tai, Jesse Roland Allan

VolunteersGlearda Sokoli , Michael Mazurkiewicz, Tiffany Cheung, Marco Lee, Timothy Cheng, Jeffrey Szeto, Thomas Kim

The Hybrid Globe The Hybrid Globe aims to find an experiential approach that approximates the simultaneous aspects of the virtual space(s) we inhabit through our devices. An ambivalent architectural tectonic is proposed to reflect the pseudo-hyper-connectivity of cyberspace in the physical-collective space, and to promote socio-spatial transparency while giving agency to its inhabitants to engage with this space in different ways. Participants’ ‘Idensity’ shapes the identity of this social space.

As with to other communal activities in the public realm, parades, in their essence, revolve around interaction. The audience interacts among themselves and with the spectacle, molding an ephemeral ambience which represents the identity of the parade at the moment. Thus, the parade is primarily a temporal experience, with dynamic social interactions negotiated between diverse participants and with the detailed character of the parade not fully predictable. The Hybrid Globe aims to capture this ephemeral aspect of the parade within an interactive artifact: a polyhedral n-sphere with animated colours and images projected onto its surface. The audience actively participates in the creative process; the composition, density and rhythm of changes to the projections are defined by social engagement.

In this parade, the Hybrid Globe becomes a public vehicle for the audience to become participants – to socially interact with others or, as Hanna Arendt puts it, to create a place to “appear to others as they appear to me.”

The pure and powerful geometry of the sphere is both familiar and strange. It is deployed here as an armature for carrying the temporal imaging (and imaginings) that will create a spatial and social experience in the environment that will exist amongst the social participants during Nuit Blanche.

DESIGN TEAM

Mehdi Ghiyaei, Mojtaba Samimi, Arthur Wrigglesworth; Damineh Dehnadfar, Delaram Farzanfar, Mandana Rezapourian, Regina Shing, Yousef Thompson

Volunteers

Marco Acacia, Matt Breton, Nicholas Callies, Youhyun(Alice) Chang, Victoria Chow, Ariel Cooke, Ramoncito Espino, Mark Eyk, Bijan Ghazizadeh, Kate Gonashvili, Carrie Groskopf, Min (Jeff) Jang, Naveed Khan, Erald Kokalari, Rachel Law, Frankie McRae, LeeAnn Pallett, Alvin Tanoko, Siavash VazirNezami, Danielle Van Ooteghem, Doan-Thy Vo

This tactile installation relies on user interaction to grow organically. Each user contributes to the evolution of the Light_Scape, by altering the appearance of the surface. The Light_Scape consists of individual, easy to handle cubes, each containing a tri-colour LED that cycle through a spectrum of colour. The modular shape of the light cubes allows the user to freely explore limitless configurations and patterns. The cubes and subsurface are covered with Velcro, giving them the strength to defy gravity. The Velcro’s fuzzy texture diffuses light and produces a soft pulsing glow, which when accumulated, creates the illusion of a living organism. Light_Scape reflects the social nature of Nuit Blanche as it evolves throughout the night.

Design TEAM Irina Solop, Matthew Koniuszewski, Nick SchumacherThis project was conceived under the umbrella of [R]ed[U]x Lab

Main Collaborators

Sarah Obtinalla, Jeffrey Mitchell, Dustin Sauder, Taylor Slade, Channing Julien, Eranga De Souza

VolunteersAnne Kwan, Bill MacDonald, Dana Gurevich, Diana Koncan, Ericka Song, Feraday Loughlin, Giovanna Monaco, Haya Alnibari, Hoang Chu, Jason K Chang, Kate Korotayeva, Lily Jeon, Louis Lim, Marcus Parisi, Mateusz Bledowski, Nebi Milutinovic, Sena Kaska, Sookyum Lee, Stephanie Wu, Yuliya Platko

Photography and Video Joseph Choi, Jake Van Buskirk, Michelle Ashurov

RevitaLight[R]evitaLight intends to enhance the spatial experience of the users in producing a more vibrant atmosphere in urban context. “RevitaLight” had successfully transformed the interior vacant and atrium space of the Bata Shoe Museum into an interactive urban space in which the installation illuminates and is motion censored as a form of responsive design. It allows participants to trigger and operate the installation through the use of responsive technology. This prototype emphasizes a potential livelihood of urbanized green spaces throughout the city: an interactive sculpture during the day and interactive street furniture by night.

Through responsive technology, the installation acknowledges the participants’ presence. It provides a dynamic experience in the existing site for the passersby, but will also serve a purpose for the user to highly engage with the space through the use of motion sensors embedded in the installation.

By integrating technology and aesthetic in urban context where population density is high, RevitaLight aims to inspire and interest the public in adaptive design features, as well as to increase the value of unused spaces. Therefore, pedestrians will engage in a unique sensory experience during the night with this kinetic installation, reflecting the scale and spirit of the Nuit Blanche made accessible to all audiences.

DESIGN TEAM

Benyi Hu, Daehee Kim, Kevin Kim, Lisa Guann Chien

VOLUNTEERS

Adrian Mann, Andrew Falls, Cathy Truong, Jonathan Clarke, Joseph Costanza, Newton Xian, Nishil Saheba, Roger Xu, Stephanie Tung

Engineer

Chao Fan