GLO Blissful: Interactive Synesthetic Installation 2024
by Viasu Valeriu Petrut
Concept & Design
The GLO Blissful installation is a multisensory, interactive art experience designed as an organic synesthetic instrument. The installation's core concept merges nature, sound, and visual art, where each plant acts as a touch-sensitive musical note, creating a fluid and immersive experience for participants.
Project Overview
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Design and Construction: The setup includes custom-designed consoles that house real plants, each connected to the interactive system.
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Programming: All aspects of the installation were programmed using TouchDesigner, a powerful tool for real-time multimedia.
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Visuals & Sound Design: Both the visuals and soundscapes were developed to respond to touch, creating a harmonious relationship between the two sensory outputs.
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Synesthetic Instrument:
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The installation functions as a 7-note musical scale, with each plant representing a unique note.
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When a participant touches a plant, it triggers an associated synthesized sound that corresponds to its musical note. This interaction also triggers a visual animation directly on the plant, creating a real-time audiovisual experience.
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Collaborative Interactivity:
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The system is designed for multiple participants to engage simultaneously. As more people interact with different plants, the visual and auditory effects evolve dynamically.
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Synesthetic Spectacle: When several notes are played together, the installation creates a symphonic effect, where both the sound and the animations respond to the number of participants, their positions, and their interactions. This creates an evolving, collective artwork that changes based on the number and actions of people present.
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Organic Visual Animations:
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Each interaction with a plant initiates a unique visual animation that reflects the nature of the touch and the note being played. These visuals are projected directly onto the plant or surrounding areas, merging the natural and digital realms.
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The animations were designed to feel fluid and organic, further reinforcing the connection between human touch and the growth and vitality of the plants.
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Sound Design:
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The sounds were crafted to be soft, ambient synth tones, creating a calming and blissful atmosphere. Each note has its own distinct character, and as multiple notes are played, they harmonize to produce a synesthetic soundscape.
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The sound design was also engineered to respond to the intensity and frequency of touches, allowing participants to modulate the volume, pitch, or timbre based on their interactions.
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Challenges and Innovations
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Interactive Complexity: The real-time interaction of multiple participants with both audio and visual outputs posed a significant programming challenge. Ensuring that the system responded smoothly to varying levels of interaction while maintaining synchronization between the sound and visuals was critical to the experience.
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Organic Interface: Using real plants as the interface added an organic and tactile element, which required careful calibration to ensure sensitivity to touch while being durable for repeated interactions.
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Synesthetic Design: The goal of creating a synesthetic experience, where sound, touch, and visuals seamlessly combine, was achieved by designing both the sound and visual elements to complement and react to one another in real-time.
The GLO Blissful installation is an immersive, interactive experience that blends technology, nature, and art into a collaborative, synesthetic spectacle. It invites participants to create their own soundscapes and visual displays, using plants as instruments to express harmony and beauty through touch.
Venice Biennale: Interactive Digital Mirror Installation 2023
Concept and Structure
At the 2023 Venice Biennale, an interactive digital installation was created, designed as a digital mirror composed of three 4K screens in portrait mode. These three screens were aligned to form a single cohesive image with an effective combined resolution of approximately 6480 x 3840 pixels.
Key Features and Interaction
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Interactive Digital Mirror:
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The three-screen setup acted as a fluid, real-time mirror that reflected the pavilion, participants, and exhibits.
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A camera captured real-time footage of the environment, which was then post-processed using software to create a dynamic, fluid effect. This artistic distortion provided a surreal and immersive experience, making it seem as if the space and objects were shifting and flowing around the user.
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Iconic exhibits, such as Perscu Car and Iustin Capră's Jetpack, were featured in the mirrored environment, allowing users to see themselves interacting with these groundbreaking inventions in a virtual, artistic context.
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Interactive Platforms with Leap Motion:
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Surrounding the main digital mirror, there were three interactive platforms, each equipped with its own interactive 4K screen.
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These platforms used Leap Motion sensors to enable users to interact with the virtual interface without touching the screen. Participants could use their hands in mid-air to navigate architectural projects, zoom in or out, and explore various aspects of the virtual exhibition in detail.
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The hand gestures were reflected on the screen, giving users a direct and engaging way to interact with the virtual content and explore the rich architectural history and projects on display.
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The fluid visual effect created by real-time post-processing was a key aspect of the installation, adding a sense of motion and reflection that echoed the energy and spirit of the Biennale.
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Leap Motion integration allowed for a tactile-less interaction, bringing a futuristic, immersive element to the user experience and ensuring that the content was explored in an intuitive and engaging way.
The installation was a blend of architecture, technology, and interactivity, reflecting the Venice Biennale's ethos of innovation and exploration.
IQOS Network of Emotion: Interactive Installation 2021
Concept by Adrian Damian
Programming and Execution
The entire programming of the installation was carried out by me using TouchDesigner. This software facilitated the complex design of an immersive, interactive environment that featured multiple layers of technical and creative challenges.
Setup and Visual Configuration
Projection Mapping: The installation was composed of six video projectors that together formed a continuous projection surface over a rough terrain. The surface included live vegetation and a small river, adding an organic complexity to the projection process.
Edge Blending: Due to the uneven landscape, edge blending required extra precision and care to seamlessly merge the video feeds. The main challenge was ensuring that the projection felt natural despite the irregularities of the environment.
Interactive Roots: The sensors developed by the team were touch-activated, and once touched, they would trigger an animation of growing roots around the base of the trees, as projected by the video projectors. These roots would grow and visually react to the space between tree trunks, using a reaction-diffusion process for seamless merging.
Collective Interaction: If multiple tree trunks were touched simultaneously, the roots would intertwine, creating a synchronized visual spectacle over the natural vegetation. This brought the interactive aspect of the installation to life, allowing participants to influence the visuals through their actions.
Tracking System
To enable interaction, six infrared cameras were mounted in correspondence with each projector. These cameras were carefully calibrated with the video mapping system, allowing real-time participant tracking and interaction with the visual elements of the installation.
Challenges and Issues
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Sensor Connectivity:
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The sensors were wireless and operated via Wi-Fi, but their reliability was compromised by the fluctuating environmental conditions.
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The switches had metallic contacts, and oscillating humidity levels often disrupted their performance, making the signal inconsistent and unreliable.
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Use of Real Elements:
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The installation incorporated real tree trunks and live vegetation, which presented various unpredictable factors such as growth, moisture, and structural integrity.
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Environmental Sensitivity:
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There was insufficient consideration of humidity and temperature variations in the planning phase.
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Video projectors were run in low-power mode to avoid damage, but this resulted in reduced visual clarity and performance. An additional challenge was addressed by integrating air conditioning to stabilize the environment for the equipment.
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This interactive installation showcased a complex blend of nature and technology, but also illustrated the challenges of working with natural elements in an outdoor environment. The sensors' malfunctioning, as well as the environmental fluctuations, highlighted the need for better preparation and technology suited to the conditions.
Immersive installation "holodeck-startrek" est 2018 , created using three video projectors on three walls of a room, with real-time content generated through TouchDesigner. Each wall corresponds to a virtual camera in the 3D virtual space, creating geometric shapes and shifting perspectives that give participants the illusion that the walls are not there, forming a continuous virtual space.
Participants stand in the center of the room, experiencing an immersive environment akin to a dome-like setup but projected onto flat walls. The geometric forms and dynamic perspectives contribute to the illusion of three-dimensional space, allowing for a highly immersive experience without the need for VR headsets.
TouchDesigner is ideal for generating and controlling this content in real-time, offering incredible flexibility for interactive design. To enhance the experience, incorporation of motion tracking so that the projected content responds to participants' movements in real-time. Adding spatial sound could further amplify the immersive effect, creating a truly multi-sensory experience.
