Torus

2019
Interaction Design and Activation, Electronics Design and Production, Programming
Client – Chimera Atelier and Paul Peña

Torus was produced by Chimera Atelier and Paul Peña for Vivid Sydney 2019. Inspired by the Fibonacci sequence and visual representations of sound, the piece forms a drum circle which the audience can enter whilst being dazzled by dramatic lighting which reacts to the 4 audience-playable drums placed at the entrances.

I designed the custom activation circuitry required to give this piece its life, including 125 DMX spotlights, 4 compact microphone sensors, and a custom designed digital controller tasked with handling show timing and progression, sensor processing, and lighting signal output.

This was of course followed up with programming a collection of animations designed to provide each group of audience members a complete experience. The show provided multiple opportunities for interaction, separated by a series of passive animations. In doing so, I was able to make possible some incredibly responsive, direct, and striking interactive modes, whilst retaining opportunity for curated experiential animations which doubled as encouragements (especially for children) to share the drumming opportunity.