Every November the city of Eindhoven lights up with all kinds of artworks and installations during the GLOW festival. Glow, a captivating light festival in the centre of Eindhoven, is open for the public. The festival attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year, who walk the route through the city centre. The artists are both famous and lesser known artists from the Netherlands and abroad. Each year, student teams from different schools and universities in Eindhoven participate in the GLOW festival. This page is about the process of one of these student teams; from initial idea to an actual prototype of the interactive artwork ‘Echoes in Motion’.
Project description
Echoes in Motion is a project that reflects the dynamics of digital communication, highlighting how messages travel through the internet without speakers fully understanding their impact. It aims to raise awareness about the effects of online interactions by providing a visual representation of how words travel to recipients, promoting empathy and constructive dialogue. The interaction begins with users speaking into a horn, each with a unique colour. A network of tubes determines the possible light paths, which users can influence to create a personalized light and sound experience. As the sound reaches the sensors, light travels through the pipes, with the light path length changing dynamically based on the speech duration, making each interaction distinct and engaging.
Project results
The final installation is a design with tubes that vary in length and height that create a complicated web of options for a voice and light to travel.
The prototype that we developed has fewer components and therefore fewer possible paths through which the voice and light can travel. By having three horns in the prototype, the effect of not knowing where the message is coming from could still be demonstrated.
Video
Acknowledgement
The project team would like to express a big ‘thank you’ to the Glow Eindhoven organisation, and to the Glow Academy events in particular.