Perceptual Ecologies – Symphony is an interactive installation that experiments with the shaping of dynamic relations between people, instruments and the physical environment. Through computer controlled music systems the installation dissolves the common placement of the orchestra and scatters it within the room – thereby allowing the audience to simultaneously create the music and the atmosphere of the room.

The installation is a study of human behavior in interdependent environments and explores if a space can mobilize group behavior that goes beyond the border of friendship or family? The installation couples two concepts – one of immediate sensory experience and one of “living relations” and spatial dependencies.

Exhibited at Platform4 in July 2011 the installation consisted of three different environments. One environment was populated by several inflated weather balloons with imbedded accelerometers, halogen spots and sound exciters, making them sensitive to touch and capable of communicating through light and sound. Another consisted of flexible creatures capable of bending their “spines” through fast twitching movements thereby setting the rest of their elastic body in motion. With a built-in halogen spot these creatures could communicate through both movement and light.

The installation was designed and built by Electrotexture Lab. in cooperation with Christian Skjødt from Tonometer Music and was funded by The Obel Family Foundation in connection with the project competition “Musik Idé”.

The balloons are capable of emitting sound and light.

The sensor system consisting of several nodes and one recieving base.