What the Duck?

Five white plastic ducks full of RGB LEDs displaying different colors and patterns. When someone tilts a duck, all of the lights, projection, and LEDs in the entire space respond to match that duck.

Red duck = Red building.

Red duck + Blue duck = Purple building.

Flashing duck = Building-scale strobe light.

This debuted in an art space full of many of my other art installations which were all being controlled cohesively from a central media server. Video content displayed over several projection-mapping installations, which then sent out color data to many different LED installations running their own lighting patterns. This meant that the entire space was always illuminated in a cohesive color scheme, either performed by a live VJ, or via a gallery loop.

These wireless LED duck controllers were an idea I had to inject interactivity into this system.

Each duck contains a MEMS gyroscope measuring and reporting its angle over wifi. The main media server receives this and which responds by applying different filters to the video output of the system. The ducks also contain addressable RGB LEDs which receive Artnet data from the media server, which allows LED patterns and colors to be controlled by the same system they're sending to.