In this project, I supported an interdisciplinary team to design and develop an interactive system for marketing purposes. For the realization of the prototype, I have implemented a program (in Processing) to translate users’ movement data into the behavior a braid of light spots.
The interactive light installation Light.Up is a student project that I facilitated as a coach in the study program ZukunftsDesign. The aim of the project was to develop an interactive system as an experiential marketing tool and to introduce people to the study program. Towards this goal, we worked on a system that invites visitors to discover the questions that students explore in ZukunftsDesign in a tangible way.
As a result of the ideation phase the following key qualities were chosen as desirable system features:
- encourage interaction between visitors
- draw attention to collaboration and community
- raise curiosity for how different types of interaction between individuals (e.g. competition or cooperation) can be promoted by design
To support visitors’ experience of these qualities an interactive installation was created in a prototyping process. The current prototype consists of sensor plates that use the movement of visitors as input to change the behavior of a braid of light spots.
The sensor data is captured using an Arduino. The programming language Processing is used to translate the movement into the behavior of the light spots. For exhibitions at events a dome will be used as a projection surface.
In order to draw visitors’ attention on the interplay between design and interpersonal interaction, different interaction modes will be implemented. These modes are planned to induce different forms of interaction between the visitors through the reaction of the light point cloud.
