Interaction and Prototyping

Context for Llum BCN 2024⇝

The Llum BCN festival is organised by the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB). It takes place during the month of February to coincide with the Festival de Santa Eulalia.

Llum BCN is a festival of lights. For three nights a part of the city is selected as the backdrop for light installations by professionals and academic institutions.

Syllabus⇝

“The path that lightning takes not only is not predictable but does not make its way according to some continuous unidirectional path between sky and ground. Instead, lightning's becoming is one that ‘has always danced on the razor's edge between science and imagination’.” Karen Barad

The city of Barcelona and the Llum Festival challenge IAAC to design an ephemeral light installation in a public square where a former electrical substation once stood. Aiming to establish a dialogue with the social and historical context of the neighborhood, IAAC’s proposal envisions a site-specific light intervention that not only illuminates the area’s industrial past but also reflects on its present urban dynamics and future challenges. The project seeks to bridge memory and innovation, highlighting the community’s ongoing efforts to enhance public spaces, while addressing critical issues such as energy transition, resource management, and environmental sustainability.

Keywords: Light and Public Space, Site-Specific Design, Interactive Design, Interactive Architecture, Light Art

Learning objectives⇝

Develop a 1:1 interactive installation that has a capacity to engage people concurrently and trigger critical thinking.
Create content collectively while developed specifically by every researcher involved in the seminar.
Produce a professional installation by collaborating in well-defined groups.
Employ Visual Programming, Physical Computing, Computer Vision, and other technical strategies to achieve an interactive environment.
Analyze and respond to the social, cultural, and environmental context in which the installation will be situated.

Schedule⇝

Methodological Strategies⇝

Lectures & Talks: Thematic sessions on light art, site-specificity, urban narratives, sustainability, and public space.
Case Studies: Analysis of past LlumBCN projects and international references in light-based public art.
Workshops: Practical sessions on visual programming, physical computing, interactive systems, and prototyping.
Fieldwork & Site Analysis: Visits to the installation site to understand spatial, social, and environmental conditions.
Collaborative Design Labs: Group sessions for ideation, co-creation, and peer feedback.
Project-Based Learning: Each group develops a complete installation concept from concept to final execution.

Deliverables⇝

Technical Design: Diagrams, schematics, material lists, and programming workflows.
Prototype: Physical or digital prototype demonstrating the core interaction.
Final Installation: A site-specific, ephemeral light-based project presented within the LlumBCN festival.
Documentation Portfolio: Visual and written documentation of the process, including reflection on context, methodology, and outcomes.

Grading Method⇝

Formative - without qualification.

Percentage	Description
	Ongoing feedback during workshops, tutorials, and critiques.
	Peer-to-peer evaluation during intermediate presentations.
	Reflective discussions on concept development and contextual analysis.

European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)

4 ECTS

Additional Resources⇝

Barad, Karen. (2017). No Small Matter: Mushroom Clouds, Ecologies of Nothingness, and Strange Topologies of SpaceTimeMattering. In Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Edited by Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan and Nils Bubandt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Bratton B. H. (2015). The stack: On software and sovereignty. MIT Press.

Crawford, Kate (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. Yale University Press.

Parks, Lisa, and Nicole Starosielski. Eds. (2015). Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. University of Illinois Press.

Sommerer, Christa & Mignonneau, Laurent. (1998) Interactive Art Research. Springer.

Works by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Works by Lara almarcegui

Works by Pablo Valbuena

Faculty⇝

Mario Santamaría

Interactive Design, Physical Computing

Mario Santamaría is an artist based in Barcelona, whose work has been shown in La Panera Lleida, àngels barcelona, Aksioma Ljubljana, Württ. Kunstverein Stuttgart and Arebyte London, among others. He has participated in group exhibitions, such as "Songs of the Sky. Photography & the Cloud", C/O Berlin (2022); "Writing the History of the Future", ZKM Karlsruhe (2021); "Infosphere", CENART Mexico (2017); "Species of Spaces". MACBA (2015). Santamaría is a university lecturer at Elisava, Barcelona, and has also been a visiting professor at universities such as Trinity College Dublin, Universität Bremen, ISIA Urbino and UC Berkeley.