THE TREE

Interactiv sound and light installation
Luz González

À Suivre-HKB, Die lange Nacht der elektronische Musik-Dampfzentrale – Bern
next_generation 7.0, ZKM — Karlsruhe.
January 2017

The respect for the tree as a symbol of a world in natural equilibrium began to crumble when man began to subordinate nature. Long-lasting and durable, a tree has the ability to grant a specific identity to its location and environment. It bears witness to the history of this location and it is memorable, whether it is real, a character in a story, or just the idea of a tree. Always an ambivalent symbol, it contains both constructive as well as destructive energy, representing life as well as death.
Peter Fischer: About Trees (2015)

The tree is an interactive installation. It is built out of 90 dimmable green bulbs, 400 meters of cable giving it the form of a tree, 8 passive speakers, 4 distance sensors and a
pickup coil generating sound depending on the electromagnetic field around it. Sound,
light and position are the three parameters the installation plays with.
The sensors detect the position of the visitors, the distance defines the volume and
brightness of sound and light, the position of the visitor defines which bulbs are flashing
and sounding.

Basically, there are three possibilities: No one is near the three, someone is between 2m
and 45cm away from it, someone is nearer than 45cm.

The data flow is as follows: the sensors detect the position and distance of the visitor.
They create a signal which is transmitted to a dimmer and influences how bright which
bulbs will be lit. The sound is created by a pickup coil which detects the electromagnetic
changes of the dimmer. It is played out of the loudspeakers next to the visitor.