Lighting Sky

LIGHTING SKY

IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT

ROLE

Ideation, Research, Design

DURATION

4 Months

TOOLS

Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Sketch, Atom

TEAM MEMBERS

Hana Kim, Dahee Kim, David Feng, Benjamin Bach, Chloe Lindsay

THE CHALLENGE

We were given the challenge of creating an immersive environment that incorporates nature and natural elements. Lighting Sky aims to talk about light pollution, as this is a topic not spoken about enough and affect many cities. Light pollution is the misdirected and excess use of light in the night environment. This overtime will gradually lighten the sky in an urban setting and with that affecting species that live within it. Some effects include suppressed melatonin production, disruption to animal physiology, as well as contributing to sleep disorders and mental health.

THE PLAN

The original plan was to create a 6 ft cube with wooden buildings, and behind it would be the backdrop of Toronto. The audience would step inside and touch the wooden structures to stimulate turning off the lights of that building. Each time a building is "turned off,” the buildings in the backdrop will also turn off. The more buildings the audience "turn off,” the darker the city will get, once all the buildings are turned off the backdrop will reveal bright stars in the sky. This was done to show how a simple action can have a significant impact and change the environment around you. However, we soon realize that creating this environment would take a lot more time and resources than we were given, so we decided to scale down the project, but have it still express our message.

THE MOCKUP

THE PROCESS

31206586_1629344630516993_4657929445972115456_n

31265430_1629344640516992_4808839323849850880_n

HOW IT WORKS

Lighting Sky works by combining both the visual and physical sense to engage with the audience. To accomplish this, we first created the order in which the backdrop will dim and brighten up. Afterwards, we created a code using javascript that would turn on and off the buildings by touch. By using a Makey Make and conductive paint, we were able to connect our buildings to our code so when the audience touches the conductive paint, it will act as a switch to turn off or on a sector of our backdrop.