Hasta La Ideas

In artist and designer Chris O’Shea’s latest project, an array of emergency beacon lights interacts with visitors, tracking their movements through a Dublin gallery

Beacon, which O’Shea produced with Cinimod Studio is currently on show at Dublin’s Science Gallery as part of its Lightwave exhibition.

Beacon at Lightwave 2009 from Cinimod Studio & Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

O’Shea explains how it works: “As soon as someone enters the space, all the lights point at that person. When more than one person enters the space, the lights share their interest. Only the lights nearest to you will look at you, with the brightness based on proximity.”

The installation uses industrial beacon lights that have been completely modified with new circuits. The position, rotation speed and light brightness of each beacon can be individually controlled.

Also, says O’Shea, “There are four thermal cameras in the ceiling that track where people are
walking: these cameras are normally used for people counting in supermarkets.”

The Lightwave show features a host of other interactive installations, including Balint Bolygó’s laser theramin,

Ursula Lavrencic and Auke Touwslager’s Cell Phone Disco, a surface that visualises the electromagnetic field of a mobile phone,

and AVIO! by Andrew Bucksbarg, in which users pick up small spheres which change light and sound as they are held.

Lightwave is on until February 20. At the end of February, Beacon will be coming to London for the Kinetica Art Fair.