Bluecadet Interactive

It is no great secret that the best sources of inspiration for digital work can often be found offline. Recently I took a trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and got inspired. Here is Multiverse, Leo Villareal’s 2008 instllation, shoved into the rubric of interactive design.Copyright © 2011 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

What it is:

Connecting the east and west buildings of the National Gallery of Art is a 200 foot Concourse walkway. When I lived and worked in DC, I would cross here fairly regularly- it was a quick way to get from the contemporary work to the cafe and bookstore. Then the walkway was nice, but uninspired; it was mirrored and well-lit but looked like it could have been pulled directly from a modern airport.

Now in this space is a light sculpture, Multiverse, by the American artist Leo Villareal. The sculpture is comprised of around 41,000 computer-programmed LED lights arranged in a massive grid along the wall and over the ceiling, covering the entire length of the walkway. The lights are set to cycle, each bulb varying in brightness based off a predefined program and pattern. These patterns activate the space as the light spreads and contracts over the surface.

Villareal "Multiverse" National Gallery of Art, Washington DC from Walter Patrick Smith, AIA LEED A on Vimeo.

An LED can be much cooler than a pixel

In Multiverse, a visualization that would normally be rendered as a pixel has been blown up to the scale of an LED light. The idea of blowing up ordinary objects to amplify and alter their meaning is nothing new in art history. Warhol did it, Jeff Koons did it, Claes Oldenberg did it a lot; what's interesting here is that what is being amplified is a fairly simple programatic animation.

Creating visual complexity out of a basic algorithm is something that was common online in the early days of Flash and Processing. Josh Davis, Natzke, Flight404, Aaron Koblin all created stunning visualizations based off of simple programming rules.

Its amazing to see a toolset we use for client work, or just messing around, used to create a monumental, immersive experience. It also shows that, as experts in these programming languages and techniques, that we don't need to limit ourselves to the standard devices and displays.

Just the right amount of complexity

Multiverse is visually pleasing, probably in large part because our brains love to decipher and decode semi-complex patterns. If the light simply flowed from one side to the other it would be boring; it’s the complexity, the fact that we sense a pattern but can't immediately decode it, that makes it interesting.

Further, the pattern is not so complex that it’s overwhelming, if the lights ran through a spectrum of colors or didn't seem to have a semblance of underlying structure or flow, the space would have been less interesting and more nauseating.

This is a lesson that is appropriate to all forms of design. The design here is complex enough to be interesting, to evoke mystery and suggest that inquiry will be rewarded, but not so complex as to frustrate the user. This is as applicable to creating an installation as it is to designing a flyer, a wireframe for a website or a monumental sculpture..

Appropriate to the space

Multiverse also speaks to the space itself, which is liminal and meant to be passed through. Liminal spaces tend to be utilitarian; they connect us from one space to another but aren't meant be lingered in. We don't willingly hang out in hallways or sit in traffic—these spaces are merely means to an end. As we pass through, we don't look for much meaning and something with narrative content would only interfere with our single-minded progress. This is a reminder that the message should be appropriate to the space it occupies. If a visitor to a website is looking to buy a widget, an overwhelming narrative experience gets in the way of that purchase. Even if the distraction is beautiful, it’s still a distraction in a hallway.

Of course, these are just some thoughts on the matter, hastily composed on a moving walkway surrounded by strobing lights.

Josh Goldblum can be found at @JoshGoldblum