Lights at the South St. Seaport

Role
Concept Design
Industrial Design Lighting Elements
Electrical Engineering of Interactivity
Where
South St. Seaport, Downtown Manhattan
Collaborators
Work completed at SOFTlab with Alana Rogers, Ryan Whitby, Liz Kelsey, and founder Michael Szivos.

Photos : Alan Tansey
An interactive public art piece for the at the South Street Seaport. The project is series of interactive lighting elements that are touch reactive, allowing visitors to author and "play" the art work rather than just seeing it. Globally the design takes the form of a synthesizer, a timer or pulse is virtually generated and passes through the field of elements. If an element has had human contact recently it will activate the light and play a note. The chorus of notes and light form a spatial experience that is hard to predict and simulate.

A video showing people interacting with the installation.

The lighting element is constructed using minimal detailing allowing the interactivity and light to be foregrounded. The pole is a composite of a steel core with aluminum and acrylic finishes.
Another detail showing how acrylic is a-fixed to the pole to introduce colored filters into the installation. The joint accounts for the expansion and contraction due to temperature differences in materials.
Behind this metal sleeve is a micro controller which senses for human contact through capacitive sensing. It then relays the data back to a main computer that runs the entire installation
A closeup view of the interactive section of the pole shows a call to action which is laser etched into the metal.

Drawings of the electrical systems underpinning the installation