A multisensory installation simulating the bioluminescent defense of Noctiluca scintillans (Sea Sparkle) where light behaves like memory, fear, and exposure
Service
Experience Design
Client
NA
Year
2025
Research and Conceptual Origin
This simulation investigates bioluminescence through the behaviour of Noctiluca scintillans, commonly known as Sea Sparkle, a marine microorganism that emits bursts of blue light when physically disturbed. The project began with a prompt to study a living organism as creative inspiration.
Initial research centred around algae observed during a nature immersion trip, before gradually shifting focus to Sea Sparkle due to its unique bioluminescent defense mechanism. The phenomenon of light as a survival instinct opened a central inquiry: what if light could behave like memory or fear, fluid, involuntary, and reactive?
This became the conceptual foundation for a multisensory exploration where light symbolised vulnerability, exposure, and defense, not illumination.
Material and Object
To materialise this behaviour, an interactive object was constructed using metal wire mesh and an internal light source. The mesh acted as a protective shell, a permeable membrane, while the light embodied latent sensitivity: dormant until triggered by proximity.
An Arduino microcontroller and ultrasonic sensor were integrated into the structure. When a hand approached, the sensor detected motion and triggered the light, reversing the traditional viewer–object relationship. The audience became the threat. Light transformed into a reactive signal, not a welcoming gesture.
HARDWARE
Arduino + Ultrasonic Sensor
Proximity detection triggers internal light, hand movement activates the response in real time.
MATERIAL
Metal wire mesh
A permeable shell that suggests protection while remaining penetrable, mimicking the organism's fragile boundary.
Visual Language and Simulation
Alongside the physical prototype, a real-time digital simulation was developed in TouchDesigner to visualise Sea Sparkle's natural fluidity and responsiveness. The simulation began as a simple particle system controlled by mouse input, then evolved into a fully integrated system driven by live sensor data.
Real-time data from the ultrasonic sensor altered the flow, motion, and glow of the particles, the movement of a hand in space caused projected visuals to shift dynamically, emulating the Sea Sparkle's glow in disturbed water. The environment was designed without fixed orientation, echoing the directionless nature of the ocean and the unstructured identity of the organism itself.
Paired with ambient underwater audio, the installation became an immersive ecosystem, where even the smallest gesture triggered a sensory ripple across light, motion, and sound.
SOFTWARE
TouchDesigner
Real-time generative visuals driven by particle systems and live sensor input.
INPUT
Ultrasonic sensor data
Hand proximity alters particle flow, glow intensity, and motion direction dynamically.
AUDIO
Ambient underwater sound
Spatial audio completes the immersive loop, sensation beyond the visual.
Immersive Experience
In the final installation, light ceased to be decoration. It became a system, one with agency, memory, and a kind of self-protective reflex. The viewer, by simply existing in the space, became part of the biological loop.
A reactive memory : light responds to presence the way an organism responds to threat; instinctively, without choice.
A digital defense system : proximity triggers illumination as an act of self-preservation, not welcome.
A metaphor for emotional exposure : the body that glows under pressure; visible, vulnerable, alive.
Each movement introduced new waves of light, motion, and sound, creating a feedback loop between environment and observer that dissolved the line between stimulus and system.
Expansion Possibilities :
The project envisions growth into a full-scale spatial installation, one where the body moves through a living, reactive environment rather than facing it from a fixed point.
Floor projection : Footsteps disturb projected "water" beneath the viewer, triggering light ripples that radiate outward with each step, the floor becomes a living surface.
OR
Immersive corner projection : Walls and floor surround the viewer with reactive visuals and ambient sound, simulating complete immersion inside a living bioluminescent system.
