Aura – Interactive Textile Installation

Aura is an interactive installation that uses Lumanit, smart fabric with embedded flexible glass fiber, that activates through sensory technology to display light, color and sound.

The installation creates a unique playful and engaging experience, exposing the audience to the possibilities of smart textiles. The development of this complex project relies on perfect coordination, involving many layers of inquiry from the smart textile and the programming to the tapestry’s design and the composition of the soundscape. 

What we did

  • Concept development
  • Form and color exploration
  • Ideation and mockups
  • Prototyping
  • Parametric 3D modeling
  • 3D knit technology
  • Sensor and interaction design

Clients / Collaborators

Digital render of textured tubes with silhouettes
Digital render of textured tube with silhouette

Two perspectives experience

The tubular tapestries hang from the ceiling just long enough to be able to stick your head inside. The concept is to experience the tapestry from two perspectives. Socially, by viewing and interacting with the tapestry from the exterior and individually from the isolation of the interior.

CAD wireframe of an organic tube

Aurora Borealis colors

A light show dances across the textured surface of the piece invoking shifting colors like the Aurora Borealis.

CAD drawings of colorful 3D textured tubes
CAD drawings of colorful 3D textured tubes

Sensors and effects

The light pattern is created from sensors that read and react to gathered data from the sounds and motions of passing visitors. The interior of the installation layers a soundscape to the light show further enhancing the individual experience.

Design sketch of tube and cocoon shapes
Design sketch of Aura 3D tube texture
CAD drawing of Aura 3D tube texture
CAD drawings show cocoon variations

Exploring interactive technology

The goal of the piece is to introduce the audience to Lumanit while exploring new and unexpected ways that emerging technologies intersect and converge with our bodies and physical, social and cultural environments — how people act and react in the spaces that we inhabit.  

WORK WITH US

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