The Mother Plant is an interactive installation designed by Alexander Savvas for the 2018 Waking Life festival in Portugal. During the day it provided a space to relax next to the lake, at night it transformed to shoot light, at random intervals and accelerations, from the flower tips down the stems into the ground. When users enter the Mother Plant, their presence is detected and a gradual state change takes place, transforming it from blue hibernation mode to red shaman mode.
Promo Video by Jono Kyriakou
Technical Details
I was in charge of the electrical and software design and implementation. Which consisted of approx. 6000 individually controllable LEDS (Neopixels) controlled by a teensy microcontroller at a frame rate of 60fps. An infrared motion sensor, PIR, placed on the inside of the Mother Plant, was used do detect the presence of people.
