Matters of the heart are the topics most tried and true for any ambitious artist aspiring to greatness, and designer Will Peterson has taken this concept to a brand new level. Peterson is using the physical heartbeat as the basis for an interactive installation called ‘SPark,’ or Sentient Park, in Mineapolis, WI. The interface is a heartbeat monitor surrounded by flower-shaped sculptures housing an array of lights that come to life precisely in sync with thump thump of the heartbeat it detects.
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Will Peterson, SPark, Creative City Challenge from Northern Spark.The flowers will be connected through a wireless network that will channel input from the heart rate monitor outward, creating a surreal ripple effect. Everything would be solar-powered and composed mostly of recycled scrap metal, making environmental awareness and naturalness important parts of SPark’s concept.“[We’re] designing these flowers in a way that keeps in balance the metallic, recycled materials we hoped to use and also has some form of organic structure that people would expect from a flower,” says Trygve Nordberg, a programmer and interaction designer on the SPark team.SPark is an entry in the 2014 Minneapolis Creative City Challenge, the winner of which will receive $75,000 and the chance to display their proposed installation in the Minneapolis convention center plaza. You can vote for your favorite installation [here] until Feb. 28, and the winner will be announced on Mar. 3.Heartbeat art has been on the rise, earning its place on the streets of Boston and in the studio of Liturgy drummer Greg Fox, whose project, Mitral Transmissions,we covered last week. The interactive and incredibly personal nature of creating art that builds from the human heart is a temptation that seems to be taking the art world by storm—and we can’t wait to see what they think of next.
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Will Peterson, SPark, Creative City Challenge from Northern Spark.The flowers will be connected through a wireless network that will channel input from the heart rate monitor outward, creating a surreal ripple effect. Everything would be solar-powered and composed mostly of recycled scrap metal, making environmental awareness and naturalness important parts of SPark’s concept.“[We’re] designing these flowers in a way that keeps in balance the metallic, recycled materials we hoped to use and also has some form of organic structure that people would expect from a flower,” says Trygve Nordberg, a programmer and interaction designer on the SPark team.SPark is an entry in the 2014 Minneapolis Creative City Challenge, the winner of which will receive $75,000 and the chance to display their proposed installation in the Minneapolis convention center plaza. You can vote for your favorite installation [here] until Feb. 28, and the winner will be announced on Mar. 3.Heartbeat art has been on the rise, earning its place on the streets of Boston and in the studio of Liturgy drummer Greg Fox, whose project, Mitral Transmissions, we covered last week. The interactive and incredibly personal nature of creating art that builds from the human heart is a temptation that seems to be taking the art world by storm—and we can’t wait to see what they think of next.
All images via Northern Spark.