Reactive Growth (2008)

For the presence of Osram GmbH at the light+building trade fair, ART+COM created an interactive media display focused on the theme ‘climate protection’. The central element of the trade fair stand is an 18-square-metre large LED wall, which shows a forest from a bird’s-eye perspective. Trees grow and the forest becomes denser with the growing number of visitors that view the installation.

The point of departure is the presumption that visitors to the trade fair for architecture and technology are predominantly specialists and therefore have a compound effect on the world lighting market. They have influence in determining the circulation of energy-saving lighting and can, therefore, contribute to the reduction of climate-damaging CO2 emissions.

For this reason, each visitor is assigned a theoretical power of decision over 1,540 tons of CO2. This amount could be potentially saved by the implementation of efficient lighting. In order to emphasise the influence of each individual, the number of trees necessary to compensate this CO2 emission is displayed.

A camera records the viewers of the LED wall in real-time. If a new visitor approaches, this is indicated by having trees grow in the foreground of the screen. In addition, in the upper screen area is a record of the total number of viewers on one day, the CO2 saving potential and the corresponding number of trees.

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