Distributed light installation – Minimal social network
WeMakeColors II, 2018 – LED strip, Wi-Fi micro-controller, light sensor, acrylic plastic, 4 x 8 x 3 cm
“WeMakeColors II” is a network of artworks composed of matching devices that dynamically generate random colors triggered by the light variation nearby. The devices are connected to each other and form a distributed light installation.
Each device is made of two light pixels: one depends on the local light sensor, the other receives the color from another device of the network.
When a light variation happens, the device generates a new color, displays it and sends it to all the other devices of the network connected to Internet via WiFi.
Since the light sensor is accessible, the viewer can actively decide to trigger the generation of a new color, for instance by obscuring the sensor, hence modifying the local color and at the same time one color of all the other members of the community. So, an active interaction with the work is possibile, but reduced to the minimum: the user can decide when, but not what color produce. As this interaction happens not only locally but also remotely, a minimal social network is created.
This work is a modification of the 2016 “WeMakeColors” work, which allowed only passive interaction and reflected on the ontological essence of communication. This 2018 version is minimally interactive and focuses on the reciprocal influence we apply on one another. We are all connected and what we do here propagates somewhere and vice versa, we are influencing and being influenced at the same time. This also means that we live both in our and other places.
Based on a deep aesthetical consideration, the artwork explores the possible palette of colors produced by LEDs and becomes an infinite color study: the two pixels produce an “interaction of color” limited in space, but unlimited in time.
The project is open source, meaning that the artist is not the only one entitled to produce it, but anyone can make it or modify the design, while ascribing the original idea to the artist.
Workshop @ Frankfurter Westend Galerie for Luminale – March 18, 2018
