Diffusing Digital Information as Light
Commissioned artwork, MIT Athens (GR)
Interactive lighting installation, sentiment analysis, social media scraping
2013
Cloud – An Interactive Chandelier
The Cloud is a commissioned installation and a collaboration with the architectural office mabarchitects (http://www.mabarchitects.com). It consists of a minimalist chandelier with interactive functions and embedded technology able to communicate with a variety of platforms, illuminating the interior of its permanent location – an office/home space in Athens, Greece. The Cloud comprises a dozen circular panels with different sizes, levels, and positions, placed in a cloud formation on the ceiling of the main room, also making a metaphorical reference to the online cloud computing services, as apparently they are used from the chandelier to express its lighting functions. A series of LED strips have been embedded inside the panels, which are controlled remotely using different data and communication protocols, allowing for an exploration of styles, patterns, and visualizations. The main aim of the installation is to speculate on possible design alternatives where technology, aesthetics, and architecture present responsive and affective spaces.
Despite the fact that the Cloud can be used as any other contemporary “smart” lighting device, its extendable and open architecture becomes a significant tool for customized interiors. As the Cloud consists of separate panels with various dimensions positioned at different heights, each can radiate specific information, extracted either from the database on the cloud or “sniffed” in real-time directly from sensor data that are streamed on the local network. This fusion of digital information in the chandelier can assist the emergence of immersive and mesmerizing lighting patterns, as intensities and color shifts can be easily achieved. The lighting system is fully controlled by the user through the use of a physical panel, as well as configured and parameterized by a middleware interface, accessible from a computer or a mobile device. One of the advantages of this development is that many lighting units can also be installed into the space, either in the same area or at separate locations around the house, offering seamless extensibility with minimum software or hardware design. The overall lighting of the house can be split into different zones if needed, and it can be controlled simultaneously from individual channels. By using the same user interface, each lighting zone can be programmed easily (simple drag and drop functions), creating a unique interactive palette of spatio-temporal design.
A dynamic lighting system, such as the Cloud, at one extreme, may mimic the warmth and intimacy of candlelight and on the other provide the lighting levels and even distribution of a sports hall, with every conceivable variant in between. The system adjusts to pre-set ranges that, according to stored settings, offer optimum and accurate performance to accompany a relevant task. If the occupant selects a value for dining, the brightness level of the light is set to 300 lux, and if alternatively a brighter environment is needed, the light adjusts accordingly to meet the appropriate settings. This lighting optimization is likely to enhance a person’s performance on each task, a prerequisite for developing an ambiance that extends preferences and sustains well-being.
By using a custom middleware, specific data readings can connect to any lighting area allowing the user to configure how information is going to be visualized, as well as how the interconnection between each lighting display is going to affect the total result. Thus, any micro, meso, or macro properties that can be sensed by the monitoring systems of the domestic interior can be used to alter parts of the composition. For example, the average mood of the household, which is collected from sensing devices, can be configured to display a particular lighting combination to assist the inhabitants in shaping their personalized interior space.
Custom software has been developed in Processing and Android that allows us to control the installation using a variety of input parameters. In more detail we can control the system using the following mode:
- Manual control – separate level and RGB channel (color and light intensity)
- Mood light – automatic smooth transitions through the color spectrum
- Use keywords (such as ‘romantic’, ‘cool’, ‘relaxing’, and so on) to extract automatically color themes from online design patterns
- Use environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, wind speed) from all over the world to control the chandelier
- Semantic analysis via Twitter (identify mood to project results through light)
Diffusing light in space and creating areas of spatialized configurations can have a profound effect on inhabitants that are immersed in this collected datapool. As in the artworks of James Turrell, light can become something more than a source of illumination. It can become a surface with volume, information, and meaning, as well as something that it is vital to perception and psychological and biological needs. The combination of space and time in relation to the light patterns can create mesmerizing and profound experiential effects, defining architecture that is able to integrate itself with human and cultural memory and become reflexive and performative – in real time or retrospectively. In this example lighting design is used as an expressional skin that empowers the architecture to become able to use light and color in order to create supportive and affective interior spaces.