Looking Outwards Blog 03

Arclight: https://www.matsys.design/arclight

Andrew Kudless, the founder of Matsys, his design studio, focuses on material sciences to combine digital and physical craftsmanship. Projects the studio has released like “Arclight,” developed as part of the Sydney, Australia Vivid Light Festival in 2015, show off the exact connection between digital and physical that they strive to achieve. The interactive lighting installation mimics natural mangroves found in Australia and uses LED lights with various colors to light up the structures. While the actual structures are made of bent plastic sheets, the light seems to move up and down the forms in lines to create a dynamic installation. I greatly admire Kudless’ dedication to combining the physical and digital worlds in such a dynamic and entertaining way, as the algorithms used to construct the installation probably use LEDs connected in some way so that when the “string” of lights reaches the bottom of the structure, another begins. As someone just beginning to learn about lighting LEDs using Arduino boards, it is especially inspiring to think of the possibilities that await when combining physical architecture with digital developments.