While designing lights at the annual Mattress Factory: Urban Garden Party, an idea was stumbled upon that involved a beautifully textured wall in the basement of the building. This concept relies on the way our brains perceive texture, made to seem more or less drastic by the lighting and shadows created by the texture. Simply surrounding the perimeter of the wall with controllable lighting fixtures, effects can be created to evoke the feeling of a morphing wall. As the lights skim across the surface, hard highlights and shadows are created, these shadows are filled in by a light skimming in the opposite direction. From here we have full control over just how textured this surface looks, aswell the timing, movement and color of that texture. One step further takes us into a user controllable experience. An infrared camera is mounted, pointing at the wall in order to track the viewer. Effects can be changed and customized based on exploration of the viewer. Custom software was created for this project by Technical Director, Greg King.

This project was made possible by the Teen Cooperative After School Program at The Mattress Factory. Hired as a visiting artist and instructor, Artistic Director Joshua Challen Ice, took the class through the basics of lighting design, exploiting technology and designing programmed effects, using the platform of this project.