Group: Role: Tools / Techniques:

4 people Visual design/develop, circuit building Illustrator & Flash & Physical Computing

Project Description Lightfall is an interactive installation that seeks to recreate the experience of catching fireflies on a summer evening. Participants enter a darkened room and encounter a simulacrum of a natural landscape, filled with blinking fireflies. By catching and releasing the fireflies, participants contribute to a larger audible and visual experience that unfolds over the course of several hours. We want to introduce a theme that combines natural elements with technology intervention. The experience we are creating has strong references to many aspects of nature: for example, blinking fireflies, a summer field, a sky with stars and moon, and cricket song. We make use of different types of technology to represent those natural elements. From the design of the key elements, we hope to evoke a sense of timelessness which can influence audience's emotional states and recall their memories from childhood. The installation consists of 2 primary interactions: capturing fireflies and releasing fireflies. The form of these interactions takes place on a constructed hillock in a darkened room. A projector displays a nighttime sky on the far wall, and hidden speakers play ambient music mixed with sound effects that are evocative of a summer evening. Our artificial fireflies are mounted on plants that project from the hillock. Each firefly provides light, motion (in the form of vibration) and can detect when a participant has grabbed the firefly in their hand. When a firefly is grabbed, the stars in the night sky shudder, the music becomes dark and ominous and the other fireflies become dark and quiescent as the captured firefly vibrates and struggles. If the participant releases the firefly, a triumphant theme is played and, in the night sky, a firefly rises to become a star in a constellation. However, if the participant fails to release the firefly in time, it "dies" and a constellation star shatters to pieces that fall to the earth.