Concept:

We were commissioned by Acrylicize to create a 1.8 meter wide interactive lighting installation that responds to music.

Taking inspiration from a speaker cone, the piece features a dome made from 1,970 individually cut acrylic rods, each set at a unique height to form the curved surface. These rods act as optical fibres, carrying light from addressable LEDs housed within the structure.

The project presented several challenges: achieving bright and consistent light transmission through the rods, developing visuals that could respond to audio in real time, and giving the end user control over which animation was running.

We began by using MadMapper to map the LED positions and test its built-in sound reactive visuals. While this worked, a slight delay reduced the impact of the piece. To improve performance, we switched to Synesthesia, a VJ platform designed for coders, which gave us the flexibility to create custom GLSL shader visuals. The result was a vibrant, dynamic and highly responsive display.

To complete the experience, we developed a control app that allows users to manage the installation from any connected device. The app communicates with the system using the OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol, similar to MIDI but built for modern network communication.