Published on: February 2, 2009

Cinimod Studio has sent us an interesting art project titled Beacon Installation. It is an interactive piece of Light Art utilising cameras as motion/presence detectors and an array of beacon lights interacting with the user.

It was installed at Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin/Ireland by Cinimod Studio and Chris O’Shea.

The press release from Cinimod studio:

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‘Beacon’ is a kinetic light installation with a mind of its own. An array of emergency beacon lights interacts with visitors, tracking their movement through the space, creating an immersive and playful experience.

The installation exploits a transfer of technologies from existing industrial products. The beacon lights have had their internal parts replaced with custom hardware, enabling the rotation of the reflector and lamp brightness to be individually controlled.

Thermal imaging cameras have been adapted to track the participants’ movement through the space. ‘Beacon’ is orchestrated in real-time by a bespoke control system, which uses tracking information from the cameras to coordinate an interactive and highly responsive behaviour.

ARTIST BIOG: Cinimod Studio is a multi-disciplinary design studio headed by architect and lighting designer Dominic Harris. Their area interest and expertise is the fusion of art, architecture, lighting design and interaction design. Harris believes that the large scale artworks he works on inform the architectural projects within his studio.

Chris O’Shea is an artist and designer based in London, the author of the Pixelsumo website and co-founder of the “This Happened” event series.

His focus is on developing work that encourage creative play and collaboration, challenging our ideas of space and physical objects. Engineering by White Wing Logic.