Project Illuminate brings unique, artistic, light-driven sculptures to San Jose. This project focuses on the areas of arts and culture, placemaking, public interaction, and cultural awareness. This concept uses sculptures of interactive, designable lighting schemes to bring together the community of San José. Users are able to use our downloadable mobile app to upload custom light shows and/or interact through the provided analog interface. Additionally, the software source code will be open source for use by students and developers to contribute to San Jose’s art and technology culture.
Project Illuminate positively impacts society through the use of participatory, interactive design with public art. It encourages the community of San Jose to engage with the art and with one another by providing centralized public gathering “hubs” of interaction.
No smartphone? No worries! Each Illumination Station uses buttons as an alternative point of interaction. Visitors are able to play games on the sculptures either alone or with one another.
Visitors are able to download and use a single app and connect with any Illumination Station within 100 feet. Within that space, they are able to create, upload, and watch custom designs come to life on the sculpture.
Each Project Illuminate sculpture will be uniquely designed by a different hand-chosen local artist. Since each sculpture addresses a different cause, quite commonly, he or she may have some ties to the issue being addressed in past artwork.
Project Illuminate is dedicated to boosting public engagement with art and technology. With that said, we encourage artists and programmers alike to download our open source code and submit uniquely customized designs.
Each Illumination Station is unique and dedicated to a different cause. When nearby, visitors are able to view information on the issue on the Project Illuminate app on their smartphones, including places to donate.
As a part of the Paseo Public Prototyping Challenge, Team Illuminate has created two small scale mockups of this project.
Our main prototype for this project is a scaled-down version of an Illumination Station sculpture, with the target cause of drought and water conservation, designed by our in-house artist Natasha Mislang. The sculpture is composed of aluminum and polycarbonate materials. The internal hardware of the sculpture uses an Arduino Uno and individually addressable LEDs to allow for programmable patterns. In addition to a scaled-down version of an Illumination Station sculpture, our team has produced a miniature model of St. James Park. This model provides an aerial perspective to demonstrate possible installation sites, and uses individual LEDs to represent possible future installation sites. We believe St. James Park is a prime location that would greatly benefit from the installation of these sculptures due to the increased community involvement that these sculptures would generate.
Not only are passersby able to watch stunning pre-programmed shows, they are able to get involved and upload their own!
Open your smartphone’s bluetooth settings when near to an Illumination Station. It will recognize the device and enable pairing.
Under the "CREATE" tab, easily make selections for colors and lighting patterns for your custom creation.
When you have finished making your selections, select the "CREATE" button to send your programmed light show to the nearby Illumination Sculpture.
Based on our feedback, Team Illuminate has rounded up some commonly asked and answered questions. For any further inqiuries, please email us!
Sorry, but no. Our hope is for people to be present and interact with the technology and be a part of the community. Instead, we recommend saving your project and submitting it later. You also have the option of playing past submissions foudn in your archive.
Yes! All standard colors and patterns are also free to use. You can pay to have access to additional colors and more sophisticated, premium light patterns. Our open source code will also found here on our website completely free.
All Project Illuminate profits go to the organizations specified in our app. Each organization is chosen based on its dedication to the causes represented by the sculptures.
Currently, we are being supported in the prototyping phases of Project Illuminate through The Paseo Public Prototyping Challenge at San Jose State University. It is being made possible through the generous support of various technical and civic partners. For a list of these sponsors, please visit the website.
This feature is still in the works, but check back here for more information. You can also follow us on Facebook, where we will be releasing details on updates!
For now, please send us an email with your sculpture proposal. Since this project is still in development, our team is working on the official artist application and guidelines. Please remember that we are looking for work that represents a specific cause or social/environmental issue in some way.
