In the Great Hall's large echo chamber of sound and light at the New York Hall of Science, the kinetic and chaotic nature of a crowd's movement was reflected back by an apparent living convolution of light. Lost Referential was an experiment that projected A-Life (artificial life) principles onto an interactive, kinetic light architecture.

A set of eight robotic "cyberlights" acted as living characters---constantly moving, revolving and reacting to visitors' movements---through flocking (herd-like behavior). The curvilinear walls of the Great Hall became a sensory membrane through the utilization of 34 motion sensors.

Lost Referential invited both crowd and individual interaction. A single person could control the flow and evolution of the system by means of his/her heartbeat (via an electrocardiograph medical device), causing the lights to exhibit "swarming" behavior. Thus, the individual's heartbeat became the conductor of the pulsing lights, while eight independent sound sources accentuated the liveliness of the lights' movements.

The motion-detection system, located waist-high along the walls, computed crowd displacement and established areas of interest. The area with the most crowd activity would become the focus of the swarming lights. The swarms would either avoid this area or circle around it, then break into smaller swarms that circled around themselves. The system memorized crowd patterns over time and utilized them as a navigational tool, synthesizing a virtual path through the turmoil of data.

Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn,
6585 Jeanne-Mance #301,
Montreal, Quebec,
Canada H2V 4L1.
E-mail: lpdemers@kunstmacchina.com [Louis Philippe Demers]; d356644@er.uqam.ca [Bill Vorn].
Web: www.comm.uqam.ca/~vorn.