Projections

This project was installed on West Exchange Street under the Civic Center Interchange in Providence, RI.

Because of the low lighting conditions on this street, my research was dominated by images of installations and events that use many small lights to create a larger overall effect. I was also inspired by ivy and other creeping vines that climb concrete walls. My partners, Adele Ruppert and Xirui Zhang, and I wanted to create an experience that worked with the constantly changing light caused by car headlights shining through the railings of the roadbeds.

We spent time on site at different times of day and conducted several experiments, mostly involving single LEDs and batteries that could be placed anywhere. (see pictures below). However, the space is so large that the number of LEDs needed to make an impact would have been vast. Projection gave us more bang for our buck.

We designed an animation that would cycle through the growth and shrinkage of a "light vine" over 10 minutes (top gif). However, after cycling through the animation, we realized that the projected image was difficult to see in its growth phases. We decided to freeze the cycle at its brightest, fullest phase (bottom gif).

We used an Epson Powerlite 1945W 4200 Lumen projector paired with a Honda 2000W Inverter Generator and ran the projections off of my laptop.