REVELATION

Nottingham, U.K. // The University of Nottingham, SBE // Year 3, Semester 1 // 2011 // Team Members: Dani Buban, Oliver Shilling, Udit Goel

Drawing on the idea of harnessing untapped energy, this installation responded to waste energy in a given site through a unique transformation of sound energy to visible light. The installation composed of a series of timber rings strategically designed to maximize the amount of material gained from a single 2.4x1.2m sheet of Plywood. These rings of various sizes were linked together using threaded rods and nuts in order to allow for easy disassembly and reassembly. Heavy duty film was used to fashion drum-like acoustic reflectors to emphasize the resonating wasted sound energy within the environment, whilst sound insulating materials that fit the project budget (e.g. bubble wrap sheets) were used to control the sound within the structure itself. These installations housed a custom-designed sound-to-light system fashioned from LEDs, which lay at the heart of each installation, ultimately using limited resources to achieve a distinct design. 

The purpose of this was to raise awareness of the potential of harnessing waste energy using minimal resources to create useful energy. It was set up on a primary route into the university with an attempt to draw curious onlookers, raising awareness of the energy crisis through an interactive installation. The installation sparked inspired ideas of incorporation. One such application of the concept is for it to be built into street lighting on highways in the UK, so that they only respond when vehicles are detected at a certain distance. This could potentially save a lot of energy by minimizing the need for constant power.