Created for the METROPOLITAN HOME DESIGN 100 GALA, 2009. This one-night interactive installation for Metropolitan Home’s “Design 100” party celebrated the annual issue, which honored 100 of the most noteworthy personalities, places, and extraordinary objects in the design world. Rockwell Group’s LAB transformed the Four Seasons Pool Room with an interactive sound and light installation using custom software it developed. A 12-foot-diameter weather balloon floated above the pool; projectors surrounding the balloon displayed small colorful shapes (digital confetti). Special maracas—containing a microcontroller with an accelerometer to measure its movements, a Bluetooth to communicate to the computers, dried beans to produce a shaking sound, and an offset motor that created vibration—around the pool also affected the graphic on the screen: Shaking one stirred up the confetti, causing fireworks of light, color, and sound, while shaking another brought text, in a font created solely for this event, to the surface of the balloon. Each maraca also generated a different musical note, creating a harmony of sounds when all shaken together.
Principal: David Rockwell
Design Team: Tucker Viemeister, Keetra Dean Dixon, James Tichenor, Joshua Walton, Brett Renfer, Thomas Haggerty
For more information visit the LAB at Rockwell Groups site
