Heart Beacon is an interactive enclosure of light, color, and sound acting as a symbol of hope and resilience for the community. Similar to a lighthouse, the piece is intended to both comfort and warn. During the day, sunlight steams through the acrylic walls creating a diffuse glow of light and shadow. In the evening, color changing LEDs project rhythmic lighting displays across the interior walls. During an ‘activation’ ECC personnel can change the lighting in the sculpture to indicate an emergency transforming the artwork into a visual communication tool.
For Heart Beacon, the artists—working with the design and fabrication company Creative Machines—developed a unique heartbeat sensor, which senses and displays visitor’s heartbeats thereby using the piece to take the literal and metaphoric pulse of the community. Using a touch-activated sensor, people can use their pulse to create a thumping sound that resonates through the steel frame and flickers the lighting matching the pattern to their heartbeat. By measuring a small, internal element such as a heartbeat and amplifying it to a monumental scale the piece becomes a power reflection of individual life and reminder of what is worth saving.
Heart Beacon was a collaboration between Joe O’Connell, Blessing Hancock and Creative Machines.
More info: creativemachines.com
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
