Surfaces

IED Partnership

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – LED SHOW
Electronic Language International Festival
 

Surfaces – Brazil

Concrete beams, glass, brick walls, cement… Buildings are built to last, to withstand time. LED screens, on the other hand, thrive on the light they emit—they turn on, blend, and fade. They are ephemeral. When a building is clad in LEDs, the permanent and the transient meet, between what already is and what might become. In the iconic FIESP building on Avenida Paulista, surface design transforms architecture into a field of experimentation. There, students from IED SP explore new possibilities for this building’s existence, redefining the structure through animated light and design.

BIO

Students of the Bachelor’s degree in Graphic and Digital Design at the Istituto Europeo Di Design (IED SP) have come together to create a collective work of animations inspired by surface design, its redefinition, and media materialization, seeking to explore language for visual communication projects. IED is an international training and research network in Design, Fashion, Visual Communication, and Creative Management.

Modern Guru
Modern Guru is a translucent ovoid with four huge digital eyes, floating above a ceremonial ring of LEDs. From his mouth flows a ream of absurdist messages, and in a statement about the true nature of lived experience, a new message is delivered when visitors take a photo of Modern Guru – a missive produced only for those who seek to photograph life rather than live the moment. This immersive new media art installation uses the intersection of art and technology to explore modern paths to happiness through unique interactions with characters along a mystical journey of discovery. Visitors are asked to commit to the path – a tight and winding trail with subtle points of connection along the way – a glowing landscape of oversized, whimsical mountains that chant incantations and blink innocently from digital eyes.
Having communed with the Guru, visitors then weave their way back through this warped and strange world full of illusions and delusions, perceptions and deceptions, all the while bathing in luminescent light; embracing big, gentle forms; and following their own path up the pink tongue staircase to meet the one who oversees the whole fantastic dominion, the Sun God.

Bloom Nebula
Incorporating LEDs, electronics, and custom code, this sequenced light sculpture exemplifies Villareal’s latest inquiries into natural and synthetic systems.

Oracle Collection
The performance centered around ORACLE, a digital palm reading given by model and iconic muse Axelle Doué. The surrounding luminous dresses embodying the four elements— air, earth, water, and fire—come alive during the reading, with mirrors reflecting them into infinity. The pieces are crafted from diverse materials, both natural and synthetic. Well beyond typical textiles, Clara Daguin implements optical fibers, pleating, embroidered circuits, addressable LEDs, sculpted resin, home-grown alum stone crystals, Swarovski Elements, silk organza, microcontrollers and radio frequency modules.

Beethoven recomposed
Het audiovisuele project Beethoven hercomponeerde in opdracht van de Duitse omroep WDR is een unieke aanpak om de muziek van Ludwig van Beethoven tastbaar te maken voor mensen met en zonder gehoorbeperking. Om het hele publiek een klassiek concert met hun ogen te laten beleven, werd de symfonie vertaald in een visuele reis door drie generatieve werelden die de melodische beweging, het ritme en de stemmingswisselingen volgden. Deze visuals werden geprojecteerd op een groot monolithisch canvas dat boven het orkest hing. Aan elke kant van het canvas werden drie LED-strips toegevoegd om het toneellandschap te openen in de vorm van de orkestbak. Terwijl de projectie erop gericht was een samenhangend verhaal te vertellen en de verhalende en emotionele aspecten van de muziek weer te geven, werd de lagere resolutie en verschillende lichtintensiteit van de ledstrips gebruikt om de muziek op een nogal didactieve manier over te brengen.

Saturation Sampler
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s work Saturation Sampler, uses AI computer vision to track onlookers and extract the most saturated color palettes from their bodies and clothes, creating a gridded composition from the footage where viewers catch glimpses of their reflections in the pixelated field. With the widest color gamut available and an unparalleled 160-degree viewing angle, Luma Canvas delivers a unique viewing experience unlike any other. The direct emissive nature of the display’s LEDs creates a visceral and material encounter with Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive work, meaningfully situating his digital work within the physical realm.

Music Automats
“Music Automats é uma instalação de som robótica autônoma. A peça é composta por diversos instrumentos robóticos, construídos a partir de instrumentos acústicos, objetos do cotidiano, motores, componentes eletrônicos, peças de madeira e metal. LEDs nos instrumentos visualizam o som. O resultado é um mundo de som futurista totalmente automatizado que também é visualmente único devido aos instrumentos e robôs construídos por nós mesmos. A obra explora a coevolução do homem e da máquina, um futuro em que já nos encontramos.” Martin Backes

A linguagem irrestrita das máquinas
O hipercubo tem 3 metros de comprimento e consiste em uma faixa de LED personalizada de 168 metros, incluindo 22.848 LEDs. Uma vez que o contato dos participantes. O batimento cardíaco será capturado pelo dispositivo de iluminação, que mudará a animação da luz. O ritmo do batimento cardíaco humano é visualizado pela máquina. A máquina engolfa os traços físicos dos seres humanos que se dissipam. Na verdade, essa experiência ocorre a cada momento da vida cotidiana. As animações de luz e som também estão vinculadas aos dados meteorológicos locais, formando a sociedade do espetáculo pós-humano. A máquina respira e a natureza reage.

بول فريدلاندر
ポール·フリードランダー
The Brain Unravelled
“The installation is a development of the long standing wave series. It is the first light sculpture to be lit entirely by LEDs. Many thanks to my electronics engineer, Louis Norwood, for helping realise some ideas I have been contemplating for years and finally the technology has matured so I now have a completely new computer controllable light source.” Paul Friedlander

Conheça seu criador
Uma performance teatral ao vivo / escultura de luz cinética com drones quadrotor, LEDs, espelhos motorizados e faróis em movimento dançando em uma alegre celebração de balé robótico da tecnoespiritualidade. Explorando UAVs (veículos aéreos não tripulados) semi-autônomos programados por computador como um meio de desviar e desviar a luz e criar esculturas de luz flutuantes dançando ao som da música. Máquinas que tradicionalmente são fornecedores de vigilância e opressão; são artisticamente redefinidos para serem fornecedores de música, dança, alegria, celebração e criatividade.

Hula Hoop
Depuis nos débuts, nous avons toujours conçu et imaginé des installation émettrices de lumière, que cela soit en utilisant la vidéo ou les leds. Avec Hula hoop, qui est une installation issue de la même technologie que Flux, nous voulons proposer notre premier objet non lumineux en utilisant un seul médium : le mouvement. C’est en multipliant un objet simple, un anneau, tournant sur lui même que nous proposons une oeuvre dynamique.

Waldian
Waldian is a standalone, wall hanging sound and light fixture capable of playing a near infinite amount of melodic permutations over a predetermined musical scale, complemented by emerging light patterns from twelve separate LEDs spread across the sculpture. In technical terms, Waldian contains two oscillators, an envelope generator and a voltage controlled amplifier, all controlled by impulses from a network of logic gates akin to those of early computers. These impulses are essentially the nerves in the electronic ecosystem, deciding over pitch and amplitude changes as well as creating bursts of light to highlight the entrances of each note. Finally, there is a tube overdrive stage that creates harmonic and subharmonics based on how far away the two oscillators are from each other in frequency. Most parameters are customizable, such as the aforementioned pitch, amplitude and overdrive, but the responsiveness and envelope of the light bursts can also be adjusted, directly affecting the appearance of the light patterns.

Exformation, an interactive installation inspired by the concept of “exformation,” was developed for a composition by Jesper Nordin performed by the Diotima string quartet and combines musical, luminous and colorimetric scores. Around the musicians, positioned on a technically equipped stage, three aluminium-edged cubes with LEDs mounted on circular rails move and angle their light in keeping with an algorithmic programme based on analysis of the spectrum, timbre and intensity of the music. This sensitive object becomes a total composition, a poetic, digital entity responding to the work played at its centre.

Tornado Dress
with Meghan Price & Maryam Golshayan
The lining of the dress has been embroidered with conductive threads and electronic components including super bright white LEDs. Three small photocells have been embroidered to the outside of the dress and detect the amount of ambient light. Depending on the quantity of light that is sensed, different flashing patterns are triggered that are reminiscent of lightning effects that can accompany severe weather situations.

あずままこと
אזאמה מקוטו
아즈마 마코토
Адзума Макото
Water and Bonsai

In his continued forays into experimental botany that blur the lines between art and science, artist Makoto Azuma (previously) has reimagined the bonsai tree, one of the oldest Japanese artforms. This latest work titled Water and Bonsai, began with a dead branch from a juniper tree which was carefully attached to java moss meant to simulate the form of leaves. The entire piece was then submerged into a modified hydroponic environment similar to some of his earlier aquatic plantscapes replete with LEDs, a filtration system, and C02 emissions that encourage photosynthesis.
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SOFT REVOLVERS
Soft Revolvers is a music performance for 4 spinning tops built with clear acrylic by the artist. Each spinning top, 10’ in diameter, is associated with an ‘instrument’ or part in an electronic music composition. The tops are equipped with gyroscopes and accelerometers that communicate wirelessly with a computer where the motion data collected (speed,unsteadiness at the end of a spin, acceleration spikes in case of collisions) informs musical algorithms designed in Pure Data. LEDs placed inside the tops illuminate the body of the objects in a precise counterpoint to the music.

Jacob’dream: a luminous path
San Francisco-based electronic-media artist Jim Campbell creates work that combines film, light emitting diodes (LEDs) and sculptural elements. His choice of materials is often complex, and he uses them to create imagery that is allusive and open-ended. His exploration of the distinction between the analog world and its digital representation metaphorically parallels the difference between poetic understanding versus the mathematics of data.

The Climate Dress
The Climate Dress is made of conductive embroidery, over hundred of tiny LED lights inserted into the embroidery, a CO2 sensor and an Arduino Lilypad microprocessor. The LEDs visualise the level of CO2 in the nearby surroundings and are powered trough the embroidery.

SPACE WASTE LAB PERFORMANCE is a unique large-scale outdoor artwork of LEDs and real-time tracking information to visualise space waste above your head on an altitude of 200 to 20.000 kilometers. A real piece of space waste is part of the outside exhibition. Special designed software and camera technology developed in the last year enables the SPACE WASTE LAB PERFORMANCE to be exhibited international, in compliance with strict safety and aviation regulations.

珍妮•霍尔泽
ג’ני הולצר
ジェニー·ホルツァー
제니 홀저
ДЖЕННИ ХОЛЬЦЕР
for saam
Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) is an internationally renowned artist best known for her pioneering work incorporating texts into light-based sculptures and projections. For SAAM (2007) is Holzer’s first cylindrical column of light and text created from white electronic LEDs (light emitting diodes). The piece, according to the artist, is “sensitive to the formal integrity of the museum and attuned to the experience of the collection and space.”

Saturn Submerged

Saturn Submerged is part of an ongoing series of infinite boxes that creates an expanded infinite space within itself. The sculpture is composed of multiple mirrored surfaces and LEDs, which are fused to create the illusion of infinite depth and imagery. Mirrors include convex domes and walls; LEDs are programmed to continuously change in randomized combinations of almost infinite colors and sequences based on several variables.

Chandelier
The Grand Staircase chandelier (above) is comprised of a large 1.2m diameter fresnel lens, rimmed by a white Corian ring, and suspended in front of a rose-gold plated cradle housing 9 high power LEDs. “As the white light generated by the LEDs passes through the lens, a pattern of 9 overlapping rings is created, adorning the ceiling with a unique crystalline rose.”

particles at ycam

UntitledSkull

Dexia Tower

Der Dexia Tower ist mit 145 Metern von oben nach unten und 38 Stockwerken das dritthöchste Gebäude in Brüssel, Belgien. Mitten auf dem Rogier Square leuchtet das Gebäude wie ein Leuchtfeuer über der Stadt. Der Turm ist von mehreren wichtigen Verkehrsadern in der Hauptstadt aus sichtbar und befindet sich genau in der Mitte der Achse Mint Square – North Station. Er hat eine trapezförmige Grundfläche auf einer Fläche von 4.400 Quadratmetern. Entworfen von lab-au, the Bei der Installation werden in jedem Fenster ein Dutzend LEDs verwendet, sodass das gesamte Gebäude wie eine große Lite Brite-Leinwand aussieht. Die Temperatur wird basierend auf dem Monatsdurchschnitt angezeigt und eine andere Farbe repräsentiert jede Zunahme oder Abnahme. Es gibt anscheinend auch einen Farbcode für die Darstellung von Luftfeuchtigkeit, Windgeschwindigkeit und Niederschlag, aber er schlägt uns.

Crystal Aqua Trees
Installed in Sony Square in Tokyo and on display until January 14, the ‘Crystal Aqua Trees’ is a crystal work of art inspired by the concept of a fountain that can be seen as a spray of water as well as a Christmas tree. Designed by Torafu Architects, the project was inspired by the Trevi fountain in Rome, the “Ai no Izumi” (Fountain of Love) charity drive, which has been held by Sony every year since 1968. For this edition, the architects proposed a new embodiment as an interactive installation. More images and architects’ description after the break.In response to changes in the landscape of the street and the actions of people, the illumination will play beautiful music in harmony with a gorgeous light display. The movement of people is picked up by a sensor camera, which prompts the pillars of light illuminated by LEDs to change colors to create a glimmering structure.Whenever coins are deposited in the crystal donation box placed in front of the square, the installation responds by switching to a special performance, as if acknowledging the contributions made. Like water in a fountain, the polished black floor surface of the stage reflects the illumination, creating a wonderful scene in the middle of the streets of Ginza.

Sergio Guerra
ledscape

MERCEDES-BENZ “Invisible Drive”
The Mercedes-Benz F-CELL is the first hydrogen-powered car, which is ready for series production. With a spectacular action we draw a suitable attention to this innovation: We made people experience F-CELL the same way the environment does – like it’s not even existent. In practice: We disguised the B-Class F-CELL with mats out of LEDs on the one side and fixed a camera on the other side of the car. The camera filmed everything that happened behind the vehicle and transferred every action directly to the LED mats. The effect: The B-Class fused completely with its surrounding and became invisible for the passersby in the immediate vicinity.

تاكاهيرو ماتسو
松尾高弘
타카히로 마츠오
Такахиро Мацуо
Phantasm
file festival

To explore a fantasy world experienced sometime and somewhere in our memory. Phantasm is an interactive installation in which participants light up in a small dreamlike world in space. As you take hold of a glowing sphere that releases a pale light, the area lights up in pale blue light, and white butterflies appear from nowhere as a soft piano melody flows. Butterflies fly slowly and gloriously, gathering toward the sphere, and chase you as you move the sphere. The sphere is the key to the real world and fantasy. Participants can experience the nostalgia of playing with butterflies by moving around or holding the sphere in the air. Beautiful white butterflies draw wing strokes in the air as if they are symbols of a fantasy world; they delicately lead you into their world. If you cover the sphere with your hands to shut out the light, the butterflies gradually disappear, leaving silence and lingering light, bringing you back to reality. You will find yourself perplexed as if it were a fleeting dream. Technical statement of “Phantasm” LEDs are used as the light source for the sphere which is the interface, so that the sphere glows in uniformity and allows the interaction of participants hiding the light or releasing the light with their hands. Light, color tone, and the position of the sphere are monitored with a sensor camera placed on the ceiling, and by connecting with real time CG, the butterfly movements (appearance, disappearance, gathering, and chasing) become possible.