I’ll be showing a piece at  ‘PROGRESS: The Show at the End of the Universe’ at Mass Art’s Pozen Center for Interrelated Media.  The show is tonight, April 15th, at 7 pm.  There will be tech artwork as well as talks. (Event Info)

The Universe will revolve around the exploration of complex natural systems. All works in Pozen will be connected to a brain sculpture in the middle through a series of sensors and triggers. Participation is encouraged.

Each output of the system will be an interpretation of a specific process, in an attempt to compare and contrast the human mind to other natural processes. The intention is to better our understanding of the universe, while encouraging personal investigation by each individual.

[from site]

I made an LED grid with blow sensors.  I liked the idea of making an interactive LED grid that would display interesting phenomena based on the contributions of two people.  Below are a few images of the grid as I was making it.  Come out to the show and see the finished piece.

The grid is made using two shift registers.  The anodes of the LEDs are connected along rows, and the cathodes along columns.  All of the columns go into one of the shift registers, and the rows go into the other shift register.

The blow sensors are two piezo’s on either side of the grid which trigger the LED particles that float across the array.  When a particle from one sensor collides with a particle from the other, a seed is placed which triggers Conway’s Game of Life.

LED grid with blow sensors from which light on Vimeo.

The video above is a clip from the grid in progress, testing out the sensors. I’ll take video/pictures of the finished piece at the show tonight.

The grid was made at Sprout with the awesome help of Sam Cormier.

‘The Show at the End of the Universe’ is part of the 2011 Eventworks Festival, titled PROGRESS.  The Pozen Center is located in North Hall at 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA (Massachusetts College of Art and Design)