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Seven 7,5 m high LED columns occupy the strip of green between the Osram headquarters and the Mittlerer Ring, the busiest road in Munich. For a period of six months, these columns ran the interactive installation Reactive Sparks.
Reactive sparks is directly related to the location it was designed for and reflected the flow of traffic by translating the kinetic energy of the passing cars into light. A camera-tracking system registered each passing vehicle and triggered a light wave on the columns. These waves followed the vehicles in real-time through the installation, which had a length of over 70 meters.
The columns also served as a visual collective memory. The light trails added up in the course of the day, growing steadily brighter as the number of passing cars increased: Thus the gentle haze of the morning light turned into a bright storm of light by the time darkness descended on the city.
The light installation’s interaction with the immediate environment created a direct link between the driver and the location. Passing drivers could see that their movements made them part of reactive sparks, increasing their awareness of the place and their involvement in the problems that beset it.