Magnetic Potential


Pittsburgh, PA
Jakob Marsico
Fall 2018

In collaboration with: Tyler Stern, Soonho Kwon, Hamza Quereshi

Magnetic Potential is an interactive installation that projects a mural of flowing contour lines that evolve and transform based on the activity of a motion sensing bracelet. The project was made for Sam and Dale Griffin, a couple living in Palo Alto, CA, and closes the physical distance between the pair when one is out on business. Their tradition of sitting in the garden together at night is kept alive by signaling the presence and motion of the other through a serene display of light and color.

The installation uses TouchDesigner to generate and projection-map an animation consisting of vector fields generated out of a 3d noise cloud. Two colors, one noisier, one more pure, are overlayed to created depth and gradient. The colors slowly morph and change from a preselected palette. We incorporated and adapted code offered publicly from Derivative.

These lines gracefully flow in a default state, moving slowly through the samples point cloud. The animation reacts and changes by altering the seed of the cloud - changing the location of the point charges - upon signal from the bracelet component.

See the full gallery post here.