The Pool

source: jenlewinstudio

POOL -verb = combine, amalgamate, blend, join forces, league, merge, put together, share (Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus -)

The Pool is an environment of giant, concentric circles created from interactive circular pads. By entering the pool, you enter a world where play and collaborative movement create swirling effects of light and color. Imagine a giant canvas where you can paint and splash light collaboratively.

The pool is composed of over 100 interactive circular platforms placed in giant concentric circles. This arrangement can be as small as 40 feet x 40 feet (when compressed) or as large as 50 feet x 50 feet (when expanded.) Each pad is independent and simultaneously interacts and listens to its environment based on user feedback. Together, the pads create complex, surprising, and unpredictable color arrays with their user participants.

By adding and subtracting light, individuals and groups of people are able to interact with The Pool in profound ways. The interaction varies dramatically depending on the number of individuals involved. This dynamic interaction between individuals and The Pool creates environments ranging from curious and playful with few participants to energetic and competitive with many participants.

Like a giant game of light “ping pong,” the pool will have users running and jumping, adding, bouncing, and mixing light together.

HOW DOES THE POOL WORK?
Each Pad in The Pool senses the movements of a person. User inputs such as foot location, foot pressure, and speed are sensed by the pad surface. As a person moves, light ripples out to the surrounding pads. For example, by leaning left, a ripple of varying intensity starts in that direction. A stronger more deliberate lean could cause a ripple to jump rings and fill the entire Pool. Ripples vary in light strength, length (the number of pads this message propagates to), and color. Each person’s ripple is unique. As ripples interact with other ripples, an infinite variety of colorful patterns emerge.

For the last 15 years Jen Lewin has been creating large, immersive, interactive art pieces for the public. From interactive sound and light sculptures that inspire people into play, to woven fiber video curtains that reflect movement, or giant, robotic, ethereal moths that dance based on human touch. Lewin’s ability to utilize technology as a medium is rare and unprecedented. She brings an organic, feminine quality to her electronic work that leaves viewers enchanted and surprised.

As a trained architect, Lewin’s pieces are often the scale of buildings and rooms. She creates experiences and environments that are both part of, and integrated into, a physical space. For example, herwork “The Pool” spanned almost a quarter acre and involved 120 interactive, glowing, outdoor light platforms that when stood upon, interact with each other. Her 2008 piece “The Moths,” was composed of three giant, translucent, silk robotic moths set to movement based on how someone moves under them.

While Lewin’s pieces may seem very technically complex, she has developed a system that uses her own custom simple raw tools to create complex, robust, interactive works with longevity. Her works can be waterproof and weatherproof. They can survive harsh conditions, and do not require enormous technical maintenance. She uses small microcontrollers and custom electronics, that allow her pieces to run for years without upkeep and provide her with infinite ways to capture user feedback, such as how a person is moving through a space or touching an object. With these tools, Lewin is capable of creating an infinite variety of work that allows her to create magical pieces that capture viewers and engage them in a space.
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source: smithsonianmag

“T” “The Pool” is the creation of Jen Lewin—and the thousands of people who hop, skip and jump across its 100 glowing pads. The computerized sculpture, scheduled to appear in Scottsdale (March 21, 2014), Cleveland (August 6-16, 2014) and Singapore in the coming year, fuses visual art, technology and human interaction: When you step onto a pad, it lights up, radiating ripples that collide and commingle with those of other pads. With a few participants, the Pool is a ballet of splashes; with many, it’s a symphony—or cacophony—of color.