Projects & Art

Concept

TRACES makes the process of environmental contamination visible. Visitors point weak, colored lasers at a 3D-printed alpine terrain. Where a laser hits, the simulation introduces water of that color. The water flows downhill, mixing with other colors, eventually reaching a projected sea at the base of the installation. This sea archives every input as sediment. Time compression ensures that nothing disappears entirely. Inputs become thin lines over time, but remain visible beneath newer layers. It looks like a game. The sea remembers.

Form

The terrain traces the typical path of persistent chemicals. Contamination begins at the source. What enters at the top flows downwards, into valleys, rivers, the sea. Simulated water is used as a medium. PFAS spread primarily via water flows. The simulation shows how a local emission becomes a global problem. Laser pointers are used for interactivity. Distance is the point. We aim from a distance, the damage accumulates at our feet. The persistence of forever chemicals translates into the time-compressed layers of contamination. Real PFAS accumulate in sediment cores, which scientists read as archives of contamination. The simulated sea works the same way.

Result

At the end of the exhibition, TRACES shows the collective result of hundreds of decisions, as an archive of distributed responsibility.

Concept

A cat, painted twice. First digitally, in layers. Then the image is projected onto a canvas and traced over in acrylics, brushstroke for brushstroke. What remains is a hand-painted cat on canvas with a near-perfect mapping to every original digital layer.

Form

The mapping turns canvas into screen. The digital layers drive animations that play across the painted surface - light, shadow, movement, all projected back onto the brushstrokes they were born from.

Result

The first piece in the series Pinsel und Pixel. Acrylic on canvas, but the canvas doesn't know it's done.

Concept

A soldering kit is a bag of components, a PCB, and instructions for assembling them with a soldering iron. You follow the steps, practice a practical skill, and end up with a small object for your desk. Most kits are shaped like animals or geometric forms. The Shrocket is shaped like a mushroom rocket.

Form

One PCB, shaped like a mushroom rocket. The spots in the cap are bare board - no solder mask, no copper - just the translucent substrate, thin enough for LED light to pass through. The circuit traces underneath the cap radiate outward, doubling as mushroom gills. The exhaust flame at the base is lit the same way.

Result

A soldering kit for people who want something unusual on their desk.

Can be found here: Binary Kitchen/Soldering Tutorial.

Concept

A wooden rocket, lit by a projector instead of LEDs. The Fairydust is a wall-mounted relief. All color comes from projected light. A gradient moves through the rocket's layers, each layer holding one hue at a time. Next to it, a simulated exhaust plume hits the wall.

Form

The body is built from stacked wooden layers, each laser-cut from the same CAD model used for projection mapping. TouchDesigner generates the visuals live: one hue per layer, a gradient across layers, continuous drift over time, all based on low-frequency three-dimensional perlin noise. The exhaust plume is a fluid simulation projected onto the adjacent wall.

Result

A quiet piece that people stop for.

Pictures by Leah Oswald.

Concept

The totem is a beacon for places where phones do not work. An egg-shaped lamp sits on a meter-long pole, carried above the crowd. The egg listens to the music around it and translates what it hears into light. With every second bar, a wave of light runs down the shell. On bass drops, a torch flares up inside, the bass dropping fuel into the fire. The carrier taps the pole twice on the ground to switch between modes. There are no other controls. The crew finds the egg to find each other.

Form

A lamp on a pole. A clean, technological implementation of an old concept. Height beats line of sight. Brightness multiplies. The object listens to the collective, not to its carrier. The egg is its own lampshade, printed in vase mode from translucent PLA.

Result

A festival fills with totems. Each belongs to one crew. Together they draw a map of where everyone is, in light, for as long as the music lasts.

Published in Make Magazin 4/2023.