Light Garden

We employ random processes in an attempt to give technology a sense of the “organic”. Technology is inherently the opposite. Random events instigated by technology are in themselves, inorganic. To produce a piece of technology that provides a seemingly organic output requires many simple processes occurring simultaneously.

 “Light Garden relies on processes with which we are not familiar. Replicating this process many times over creates a sense of random events occurring organically. The “Light Garden” repurposes an LCD monitor and it’s polarized film to create the sense of an organic process. An LCD screen devoid of its polarized them will show no image. When the polarized film is replaced with hundreds of cutouts, 3 mm in diameter, only a portion of the image on the screen is revealed through each cutout.

“Light Garden” is a digital version of the traditional sand, or Zen garden. The user is prompted to move the polarized film pieces around the screen, which reveals small explosions of color and shape dictated by the position of the cutouts.