After seeing the 50th anniversary logo for Leonardo was a brain I knew I wanted to play off of its form in my design. My aim was to create an environment with an organic feel that resembled neuron pathways. After Melanie and Pablo created the 3D model of the brain logo, I knew it would be an interesting platform to place the reactive focal point.
Technique
I searched for materials that resembled organic cell movement, and I found a bubble like pattern. It had a rainbow spectrum of color. I started to section out the areas of the room that I wanted to be coated in that texture. It became the base for the walls. For the columns and cabinets, I used a tilted moving relay of the Leonardo covers; the pace matched the movement of the bubble texture. There was a door stationed on the right side of the room, so I found a swirling rainbow texture and overlaid it on there to create a bit of a portal vibe. The main piece was the brain. There was an animated line mask paired to the edges of the sculpture that reacted to sound. Underneath that I used a zoomed in animated GIF of a neuron firing as the main skin for it. I had to experiment with different audio reactions in order to make it fire in reaction to the sound in the room. In the end I had the position of the layer move according the amplitude feed and changed the threshold so that it wouldn't look choppy. Also, I duplicated the skin and decreased the opacity so that the brain would still have light when things were stagnant in the room. I felt that making this portion of the composition was the most fun, because I was chasing a visual flow and had the tools to make it happen and truly customize it to my liking.
The best take away for me was hearing about the reactions of the Leonardo staff that came into the room and enjoyed my room wash. It was my first time putting out my work for all sorts of people to see, as opposed to just my family or friends. Some of my close friends and my little brother showed up as well, which meant a lot to me. In the video I took, you can kind of see the way the light shown on people in the room. That to me, added an aesthetic and vibe to the entire room, past just the pretty visuals. Adding reactive components made it fun to turn up the music and enjoy company in the light towards the end of the night. It was truly a night I will remember.
