Water Light Graffiti 2012, France, Paris
A wall of thousands of LEDs illuminated by water contact
The Water Light Graffiti is a project of a material creation composed of several thousand LEDs illuminated by the contact of water. By touching the edges of a LED, the water creates an electrical bridge and make the current pass thrgough the circuit, which provides power to the LEDs below the surface. The quantity of water that you deposit around the LED increase the brightness : the damper, the brighter. Based on this simple and clever idea, the aim of Water Light Graffiti is to propose a new smart material to draw or write ephemeral light messages. This project allows to perform graffiti with just a water atomizer. Water Light Graffiti supports ephemeral and more eco-friendly tag or sketch. Using water, which has no form and no colour,
A prototype wall consisting of 19600 white LEDs of 5mm diameter and flat top are incrusted in the material to obtain a flat surface. The prototype measure 5 meters by 2 meters and was exhibited for the first time in Poitier France between September 20-24th, 2012. Each LED can be controlled individually with a simple water sensor. This system allows the public to draw and sketch on the wall simply with water. The residents can paint ephemeral messages with light with the help of water atomizer, pencil, sponge, water gun,… Video credits: Water Light Graffiti is a project of Antonin Fourneau (atocorp.free.fr/), Production Digitalarti (digitalarti.com) Engineer : Jordan McRae, Design Structure : Guillaume Stagnaro, Graffiti performance : Collectif Painthouse, Assistant team: Clement Ducerf and all the ArtLab volunteers, ArtLab Manager: Jason Cook, Filming: Sarah Taurinya & Quentin Chevrier, Photographs: Quentin Chevrier, Music: Jankenpopp (soundcloud.com/jankenpopp), Editing and titles: Formidable Studio and Maïa Boumpoutou, Support : Ville de Poitiers, Centre Culturel Saint Exupéry, Mairie de Paris
Details
Building or project owner : Antonin Fourneau and Digitalarti
Project artist/ concept/ design/ planning : Antonin Fourneau
Structural engineering : Antonin Fourneau , Jordan MCrae and Guillaume Stagnaro
Light design : Antonin Fourneau
Light hardware (LED hardware) : made in the Artlab of Digitalarti by Antonin Fourneau
Lighting control software : natural control with water
Project co-ordination : Antonin Fourneau and Digitalarti
Descriptions
Facade type and geometry (structure) : rectangular wall of 2 meters x 5 meters consisting of segmented modules of 20cm x 20 cm. Each module contains 100 LEDs and a water sensor pattern for each LED.
Kind of light creation : custom sensor around each LED allows to use water as a signal to turn on the LED.
Resolution and transmitting behaviour : 19600 LED integrated in a 2mx5m rectangle. The LED pitch is 2 cm. No tansmittion - each LED is independant.
Luminace : The façade works perfectly in twilight
Urban situation : The system is easy to built in a larger scale. Positioned on the ground floor it allows people to draw on it, on the top of a building it reacts to rain.
Description of showreel : The façade reacts to the deposit of water on the surface, therefore it can be used by the public or the owner to share their creativity and ideas.