Elliot Woods, Mimi Son: Lit Tree

 
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Artist Statement:


    Lit Tree invites viewers with a choreographed cloud of light that can respond to visitors’ motions. By applying a superficial layer of immediate interaction to the tree, people can better appreciate the long term invisible interaction that they share with it. Kimchi and Chips proposes an alternative to media facades, where designers and advertisers use LED and projection technology to display graphics through the built environment. They suggest the use of media facades can lead to an asymptote of confusion and visual pollution. Instead, they ask if an unscripted entity within our environment can also be visually celebrated. If the use of trees can be promoted as outdoor visual media, then cities can be planned to balance between nature and our continuing desire for large scale outdoor visual media. Since the color temperature of light produced by a video projector’s bulb is similar to the surface of the sun (5800K), the tree naturally reacts to the light that is projected onto it. In this way we can speak to the tree in the medium it can react to most immediately, light. We listen to the tree’s reaction by the means of the detailed 3D scans of its shape that are produced by the projection system. This type of photosynthesis allows for the tree to self-optimize for projection. Leaves which are in shadow move out to find the projector’s light. Light wasted inside the tree is absorbed by photosynthesis, converting local carbon dioxide to oxygen