Forest Play - An Interactive Installation

With the broad goal of creating an interactive installation, I used this project to illuminate my love of creating interactive objects that require no instructions and no wearable or restrictive gear. This is the sort of work that engages a wide audience and invites them to join in to a technological world much larger than they are normally exposed to.

This work went from bowl to seesaw to spring playground toy, and ended as a forest of laser cut plates that afford touching and tilting to get reactions from sound and light. The biggest issues faced during this was learning how to code the simple yet complex interactions.

This project was conducted in a group of five talented individuals, across the span of just over a month. Whilst I led the software & programming, we all put our heads together to make something much better and much more complete than any one of us could have done alone. From controlling DMX and Nintendo Wii Remotes to figuring out the best way to tie a knot, this project has been one of the most educational I’ve done thus far.

The installation created a peaceful and thought inspiring environment, caccooning the participants in a bubble of sound, light, and touch, so effectively that the participants almost forgot they were in a classroom environment, some not even noticing that they were being spoken to by other participants.