A safe space. A digital experience.
You control the colors, rain, and music in this interactive art & sound installation.

“take a deep breath”  features a computer-generated rain animation meant to relieve anxiety & pent-up stress, along with sensors to transform how we engage with art. A blend of synthesized chords and heavy rain plays in the background, while a circle gives deep breathing cues by expanding & contracting in sync with the music. The colors, volume, and intensity of the experience can all be controlled by raising & lowering your hands over two pillars — represented in the video by mason jars, but I’ve been working on even better ones:

WIP

How does it work?

The entire animation is generated in p5.js, a JavaScript library for creative coding. (Thank you Allison!) While the p5 sketch runs in my web browser, an Arduino Uno basically talks to it via a local server hosted on my laptop.  Two photocells— one embedded in each pillar — continuously read the brightness levels of the room and pass that data to the Arduino. (The shadow of a hand passing over makes those values fluctuate.) p5 can then use that to change the color of the breathing cue & introduce a harmony (left), or speed up/slow down the rain while adjusting the volume to match (right).

**This piece got me in as a finalist for the Support Creativity Scholarship!
Be there for the show :)