On the night of April 28th, downtown Memphis was turned into a public, interactive lighting installation as 9 buildings were integrated with a system that sampled the activity levels from the inside of the buildings and transferred it to the tops to control a dynamic lighting display. "Inside / Out" brings to focus the information of movement and energy within buildings and makes them visible, so as people walked around the South Main gallery district of Memphis they were able to see each building node and it's activity before you enter them.
Each building node of "Inside / Out" used a laser diode system to track the amount of people entering and exiting the space, and then used this variable to create animations and patterns on the rooftops. The rooftop system consisted of a microcontroller to intepret the data sent to it from below and solid state relays to control 16 bulbs diffused by blue plexi in a minimally designed display.
The idea of "lighting design" isn't about a specific product, an artpiece, an installation, or an environment, it's about visual communication. Evolution in visual communication means understanding light, its properties, and how to control and manipulate it. Out of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, hear, and see), sight is the one we rely on the most to understand reality and our environment. Technology is allowing light to be used in ways it hasn't before, to display information about things that used to be invisible and to communicate and transfer visual information from one physical location to another. "Inside / Out" attempts to use architecture and buildings as giant, living pixels. And by taking the information from inside these pixels to control the lighting outside makes it possible to create a living canvas over downtown Memphis whose acvtive mesh and dynamic display represents the interaction between people and architecture.
James Clar: https://www.dexigner.com/directory/detail/3134