Description
For this project, I want to imitate the underwater scene using digital led strips and some special materials to make the lights look like water. I have this inspiration from my group assignment where we used glasses of different shapes. I found the globe best distorted the lights and actually magnified the lights and it looked a bit like water. So this time I also want to create something totally like water.
Perspective and Context
Art is about experiencing. My project is to give people the experience similar to what they feel when they are diving into the sea and surrounded by the water. There are all kinds of light and color changes in the marine world. For example, the deeper you dive, the darker the color you will see. Although the installation itself doesn’t move, the different speed of light change will make the illusion that you are actually diving deeper and deeper. This is the relative motion of two sides: the light of the sea and the audience.
And in the World of Perception, the author asserts that the object we perceive is actually its properties. “An object is a system of properties which present themselves to our various senses and which are united by an act of intellectual synthesis” (Merleau-Ponty 59). In my project, I will show the audience the color of the sea, and the texture of water through light modified by a certain material since these two properties can make people immediately relate to the sea.
Development & Technical Implementation
According to the experience of my group assignment on the digital LED light strip, I started to search online for transparent cylinders. At first, I could only find some vases. Then I suddenly recalled that we were suggested to work with acrylic, then I search “transparent acrylic cylinders”, and I found a whole bunch of materials I want.
Then I thought carefully what size of the cylinders I needed before I purchased them. I alsodrew a draft of how I will display the whole sculptural object.
Before the materials arrived, I was trying on the technical part: coding. I used Fadecandy, and it was quite similar to our group assignment. I imported an image I edited, and connect three digital led strips. I also used the Image library to import some small pictures of fish, and wrote the code to make the fish move with my mouse. At first, I wanted to make the moving light dots an actual shape of a fish, but I was told it was not very possible, that the shape will be very vague. So instead, I changed my idea to give the audience an impression that there is some creature swimming by.
The picture I use in Fadecandy to make the light dots the color of the picture when it scrolls down
My code is here: https://gist.github.com/lilyunverwundbar/66d2268a4202890f89c63392674fc6ae
After I received the materials, I started to assemble them together. I used laser cutting to make a wooden box to hide all the wires and breadboard, and a round acrylic lid to place on the cylinders. I glued the cylinders as a big circle and put three strips on the inside of the circle.
Before gluing: the relection is great
When I finished the physical display, I tried the code and the cylinders reflected the light really well, just likewater. And there is some lines of light diffusing from the connecting point of two cylinders, which was unexpected but very pretty. The audience will have the feeling of seeing underwater views from the outside of the cylinders.
Presentation
Before the class started, I discovered the lights weren’t working. But it worked normally when I placed them on the shelf the day before. I was very anxious then, luckily Professor helped me fixed it, although I had to break the box to check the circuit.
When it was my turn to show the project, my classmates reported that they felt the composition really made them feel underwater, which is good. However, there is some feedback that I could place the object on a white paper to show the lights more clearly. We tried with a small piece of paper and wow it was really beautiful. Also, I can improve more on the physical displaying. Rather than just making one layer of cylinders, I can add more on top to make a pyramid, thus people can also see from the above. For now I am only using an acrylic lid to cover the light strips.
A video of the whole composition:
Some pictures:
Conclusion
This time I did better than the first project. I researched earlier to get proper materials. And I made it look a bit better than last time. But I can still work more on the appearance of the installation, to make it neater, more creative and I should be more daring on the display. Next time I should have more faith in myself and try out different outcomes to choose from. (Like the pyramid displaying of this project which I could try)