Controlling LED Visuals With Sound: A Q&A WIth Squidsoup

Squidsoup are a multimedia collective whose work encompasses immersive reactive light installations. Their latest exhibition, Scapes, currently on view at the Tenderpixel Gallery in London, is what they call “an attempt to overlap real and virtual spaces in a different way, to create a kind of symbiotic reality where the real and virtual coexist, are connected, and complement each other”. It was conceived and built by Anthony Rowe, Gareth Bushell, Chris Bennewith, Liam Birtles, and Alexander Rishaug.

We caught up with Rowe after visiting the gallery to find out more about the installation.

The Creators Project: Can you tell us a little bit about Squidsoup and what you do?
Anthony Rowe: We’re a loose group of collaborators from a range of backgrounds who work at the intersections of research, art, and experimentation. We are particularly interested in the areas of immersion, engagement, perception, and how we can intuitively and effectively place virtual worlds and systems in real space. As an international group we tend to work apart, discussing the requirements of a project in detail before coming together for short but intense development periods.

What’s the technology behind Scapes, how does it work?
It uses a piece of hardware developed for us called Ocean of Light. It is a three-dimensional grid of individually addressable full color lights—3,500 LED pairs (a 12 × 12 × 24 grid) that together create a highly controllable environment that is somewhere between a screen and environmental lighting. The aim when designing the hardware was to make it possible to create dynamic visuals, in real time, that occupy physical space and can be seen from any angle. The control system is based on video wall technology, and so is relatively easy to program, as each LED is mapped to be controlled in the same way as an on-screen pixel.

For Scapes, we decided to obscure the hardware by hiding it behind a fabric gauze that also diffracts and diffuses the light emitted by the LEDs. The hope is that this helps to focus people’s minds away from the wires and LEDs and hardware (as much of this is hidden) and enable them to see the volumes, the moving 3D shapes, more clearly.

What were your aims when creating Scapes?
It’s part of a series of experiments called Ocean of Light, that use a 3D grid of lights to suggest movement and presence in physical space. We are trying to overlap the real and the virtual in different ways. In this case, the visuals we create are abstract and low resolution, but by carefully controlling the way each point of light works and responds, the results can collectively be very effective and suggestive. I think the piece works on several levels. It came about as an exploration of abstract 3D form—conjuring into being three-dimensional cities, landscapes, and abstract architectures purely from sound, light, and software. The software listens to the sounds in the room (the music and also ambient noise), and analyzes it in real time. The resultant information is used to create minimal but carefully crafted 3D forms that are reminiscent of cityscapes, mountains, and so on.

On another level, it is a statement on a possible future cinema; immersion, real 3D visuals, a time based approach that is none-the-less responsive, a strong attempt to merge the real and the imagined into a single experience. It also aims to carefully balance sound and visual. We live in a visually-biased society where sound is often a secondary consideration—particularly with digital media. Scapes, despite being a strongly visual piece, is utterly dominated and controlled by sound. Without it, there would be no visuals. Finally, we wanted to use these ideas to create an immersive, beguiling, and atmospheric experience that makes people listen in new ways, reconfigures the space they are in, and stretches time a little, so they can slow down enough to appreciate the pace of the work.