Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: BLOMÉ

Throughout the course of history, human activity has created detrimental effects on the environment in a variety of ways and scales. In our recent years, these implications have been magnified and are constantly discussed globally, criticizing our behavior and relationship to the sensitive earth on which we exist. Humans have wiped out harmless species, demolished beautiful, natural landscapes and infested the soils and water of the Earth with poison. We have exploited and savaged the environment for our own selfishness and ease of lifestyle. Blomé is an installation that speaks to the effects of our activity in a metaphoric way.

How can we get back to the purity of the landscape before we took it for granted? How can we once again learn to appreciate the movements of the natural, its character, and personality? Are we too far gone to recognize and idealize natural beauty, and enjoy it for the atmosphere and not its economic value?

To express the ways our movements as humans cause a reaction on landscapes and environments, a fragile white form hovers mere meters from the ground, with lengths undulating like waves. Strips of translucent, airy, white fabric and porous netting stand perfectly still and static, only fluttering from the movement of visitors who walk past ultrasonic sensors, activating a fan. The fan enhances the movement of strips, causing them to dance and move, just as every move we make on this planet causes a reaction – no matter how subtle. The sensors also activate lights, which brighten and pulsate, like stars moving across the sky. We believe that this, a brightening, a gentle breeze, and swaying in the move are all beautiful movements found naturally in the environment, and are encapsulated in Blomé as reminders to tread lightly.

Carving out space, creating caverns from cloud like fabric reverses the ways we perceive and move through space; how and where we understand boundaries. Do you duck beneath the fabric and walk slowly or pace quickly through it? This is comment on how we perceive our environment; do we barrel through, claiming what is our space from the fragile boundaries and layers, or do we respect it, trying to preserve its natural qualities?

Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: RAINMAKER

The cylindrical form insulates the installation from outside noises and visual interference. In doing so the interactor can become fully immersed in the dense soundscape, and remove themselves from the urban context, embracing the audio rainscape created.

Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: STRATATONE

Society has become defined by webs of communication. Never before has a message been as widely distributed as has recently been allowed by modern technology. With this distribution comes distortion. A message becomes more abstracted the more people pass it along; an inevitable case of broken telephone. Stratatone replicates this concept. A pattern (the message) should be simple to repeat, yet as the commotion of those around it increases it becomes distorted; moving, growing, shrinking.

The project consists of two stepper motors per drawing surface. A base code runs the pattern which in a perfectly silent space would remain constant. As people traverse the surrounding area, noise peaks amplify the form and create a unique image over the course of time.

And the Prototyping Resumes...

After a bit of a hiatus for the end of the Fall term, the New Year, new baby, and new term have taken a bit of adjusting to.  That certainly did not mean that the [R]ed[U]x Lab team went into hibernation! Several new projects have been in development over the past couple of months and here are a few that have come out as prototypes for potential upcoming Nuit Blanche installations.  We wish all the teams good luck as they apply!

The Room at Night

A view of the installation demonstrating how the cautious movements of visitors below the membrane alter the lighting conditions above.

Sensor Testing

Collaborating with students from Engineering, the proximity sensors have been prototyped and integrated into the wall assembly.  Based upon users' locations within the room, the lights suspended above the membrane will gradually dim and illuminate the fragile yet aggressive space.