Peanut Butter + Jelly

Members
Stefan Hechenberger
Ben Chao

Description
Mtrail is an abient light installation. Multiple of these light fixtures are attached to any flat surface of your choice. They track the motion of shadows along one axis. As people move by, the slightest change in ambient light results in a fading glow that follows the edges of their shadows. The firmware is smart enough to adjust to almost any kind of light intensity.

Purpose
Computer based installations are often reliant on complicated hardware and software setups. Sometimes the initial installation is the only time the piece comes together because of its complexity. By designing the piece around cheap embedded hardware, we attempted to make a self-contained object. As such the tangible interface, the hardware, and the software is always one piece. Simply turning on the power makes it run.

We were particularly interested in this atomic quality. The light fixtures are solid pieces. They are self-contained to a degree that they run as long as the battery lasts. They contain their own charging circuit and can be charged from any USB port. Also mounting does not require any external parts. Four built-in magnets allows the unit to mount on any magnetic material.