Category: Artistic Collaborations

LumiGeek and Autodesk enjoyed a highly artistic collaboration in early 2013 to create a pair of audio-reactive 3D printed speaker enclosures. The project was rather groundbreaking for several reasons.

First, there are very few instances where a 3D printed object is the final product, rather than an artifact of a larger process. (i.e. a proof of something to be injection molded en-mass) Small pieces of jewelry, precision aerospace parts, or medical implants are a small exception.

Second, the voxel-level control afforded by the Object printer allows for a unique combination of opaque and transparent areas to create never-before-seen lighting effects. The extruded ‘crystals’ are separated by an interior mesh of opaque material to light-pipe the LEDs.

Third, the ability to drive an array of multi-color, individually-addressable LED strip in such a confined space is very recent. This is where LumiGeek’s drivers come into play.

The collaboration was very well received in the design, 3d printing, and audiophile communities.

Joe Martin helped Atlanta-based sculptor Zach Coffin light his massive steel and stone sculpture called The Universe Revolves Around You. The sculpture debuted at Burning Man in 2012.

Martin has helped Coffin for over a decade with lighting, including a work on Coffin’s seminal sculpture The Temple of Gravity that forever changed the scale of artwork at the Nevada festival.

The Windmill Factory was asked to do an art installation for a black-tie fundraiser at the MIT Media Lab.

Jon Morris asked Robert Bose of the BalloonChain to collaborate on a balloon vortex in the large atrium, using the experimental RF technology that LumiGeek developed for the Balloon Chain

Not only did they install a balloon vortex with a circular array of fans, they created a 7×7 grid of balloons to form a low-resolution floating video screen.

This exquisite art car was commissioned by Christopher Bentley and designed by Sean Orlando.

An iPad mounted into the dashboard of the con-tower controls eight different zones of RGB lighting on the vehicle, as well a banks preset color schemes.

The iPad uses a serial cable to communicate with JoeJoe Martin’s circuitry. This system was partial inspiration for the LumiGeek 4xRGB LED Strip shield. Pat Barry’s iPad application has since evolved into a framework to communicate with various LumiGeek products.

Oakland-based sculptor, Michael Christian, has a long history of collaboration with LumiGeek co-founder, Joe Martin.

The towering kinetic sculptures, Candelaphytes, stand over 30′ tall with 32 individually addressed sections of color-changing LED strip. Video-based patterns are played from an SD card through a custom system designed by Martin.

This project was some of the inspiration for LumiGeek’s 4xRGB Strip shield, with hopes that providing access to this technology would inspire future artists to experiment with dynamic lighting.

This sculpture debuted and Burning Man 2010 and has since found a semi-permanent home on the Great Lawn on Treasure Island in San Francisco.

There are over 30 DMX-controlled LED floodlights. In the interactive mode, an iPad application by Pat Barry allows participants to “finger paint” on the screen and light up the sculpture in real-time.

Commissioned as pathway lighting for a northern California music festival, each lantern was individually addressable and controlled by a custom SD card player with video-based colors and patterns.

The lanterns were designed by CuriousCustoms.com and fabricated by JoeJoe Martin. The patterns were by Jason Mika with software support by John Taylor.