The Switch Slough
Client
Acrylicize
Asylum Supervisor
George Davies
The brief from Acrylicize required Asylum to facilitate a twitter enabled mesh of architectural LED strips, integrated into the glass screen installation.
In its resting state, the piece generates slowly growing and shifting patterns based on genetic path finding algorithms. The piece also monitors the global twitter feed and when it detects the hashtag #theswitchslough, it snaps to one of a number of predefined geometric patterns.
In addition, by adding a colour to the tweet, the user can define the hue of the pattern displayed, which adds a whole new level of user interaction. The system was created using custom designed multi-channel LED drivers on a RS485 bus, controlled by an enterprise grade windows server for reliability and robustness. The system can be remotely accessed over a secure internet connection for monitoring and maintenance.
