Announcing our Electric Sky 2018 Theme: The Digital Frontier

For Electric Sky 2018,  we decided to orient our collaborative installation around the theme “The Digital Frontier”,  celebrating the pioneering spirit of those who push the bounds of possibility by innovating on the frontier of technology. We put together the verbiage for the project, shared below, to start getting people excited!   The Digital Frontier at Electric Sky in 2018 For this project, our basic framework is to provide an overarching design theme “Explore recurring historical themes of human progress on the frontiers of innovation, layering the past with the future”, and then recruit artists, technologists, scientists, and designers to…

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The Garden Path in the Wondering Woods

We created a garden path made of reactive pavers as a part of our larger group installation, the Wondering Woods at Electric Sky (2017). As you stepped on the pavers, a pulse of light went down the garden path to show you the way. The garden path was an orienting piece in the Wondering Woods installation, both created by our art group. The goal was to explore what if the woods could see you and interact with you. LEDs were controlled by wifi-enabled Arduinos. See video with demo of LED animation here: https://youtu.be/P23V_Tt727Q Following Electric Sky, we also installed the Garden…

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Animated Pinball as Wall Art

We adapted the Arduino software originally developed for our Attacks from Mars projects for a custom wall piece painted by Shelly Farnham:  See Attacks from Mars on the Wall.    We then worked with the Seattle Pinball Museum to do a piece to display on their wall using an old Totem playfield.  See the animation on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAfIDhl02q0. This art project was inspired in part our love for pinball!   Jeff Larson of our Totally Legit crew is a designer for the Seattle pinball zine, Skill Shot, and Greg Larson is a pinball repair technician at Quick Pinball Repair, a…

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The Skykomish Hotel and the Blue Lady

[cross-posted on shellydianefarnham.com] The Skykomish Hotel is a historic landmark, built in 1904 in the small frontier mountain town of Skykomish, Washington. Neglected and empty for more than ten years, the Hotel was recently reclaimed by the Town of Skykomish and will be undergoing renovations by Revive-Skykomish LLC, in part through a grant by 4Culture. To learn more, see this article in the Monroe Monitor Better Days for the Skykomish Hotel. To celebrate the hotel’s upcoming renovations and bring light to the town during its long winter nights, we worked with locals to install LED color washes in the same style…

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