Sarah Kang – Looking Outwards – 02

Unnumbered Sparks was an interactive installation project created through the collaboration generative artist Aaron Koblin and sculptor, Janet Echelman. This giant, floating canvas was installed in downtown Vancouver, Canada in March of 2014, generating through the real-time data sent through visitors’ mobile devices. I was first interested in this project by its striking visual quality, but then even more amazed by the rendering aspect of this artwork, as visitors directly painted magnified beams of colored light with just small movements on their phones. This project was entirely manifested on a giant, Google Chrome window and programmed using Go, a language that manages the visitor interactions and outputs the visuals to the light projectors. WebGL is a web technology that enables real-time graphics processing; with the WebSockets connection, when users make contact with their phones, the location data is transmitted to the server, allowing instant interaction with the giant canvas projections.

The Making of Unnumbered Sparks, from YouTube.

Aaron Koblin’s focus on data-based interactive digital art partnered with Janet Echelman’s beautiful, flowing sculptures creates a visual experience that users can directly experience and become a part of.