Play Inside the Sun to Learn About Fusion

SOL – an interactive spatial installation staging the origin of solar energy. In an immersive environment the principles of nuclear fusion can be experienced in a narrative and playful way. Entering a bright and glistening corpus, the visitor experiences the darkness inside the sun and watches the chaotic motion of protons. Thankfully, radiation not included. Interacting with the particles causes them to fuse and produce energy which manifests as light bursts inside “the core” as well as a rising light level on the outside.

The piece was commissioned to explore the principles of nuclear fusion inside the sun. The choice to take a staging approach rather than a factual one created a multichannel installation using:

Openframeworks (Camera Tracking),
Gestalt (Generative Particle Simulation)
Creative Computing (DMX Light Control)
Supercollider (Dynamic Sound Output)

The visitors can influence the particles on a table projection and start a chain reaction of nuclear fusions, the resulting energy is mirrored via DMX-controlled LED clusters under the table as well as an array of DMX-controlled fluorescent lights on the outside, supported by a dynamic soundscape consisting of atmospheric sounds and energy bursts.

Commissioned by Humboldt University Berlin

Curated by Neues Universum e.V

Partners: neo.studio neumann schneider architekten

Designer: TheProduct*