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Forest Daydream

UAL Creative Computing Institute · with Phoenix Perry · 2020 · Circuit design and fabrication

About the project https://vimeo.com/446189275

The finished dome at night, its frame lit pink and red, round play stations on the floor inside
The finished dome at night.

An interactive installation by students of the UAL Creative Computing Institute, made with the game designer and artist Phoenix Perry and shown at the Wellcome Collection and Tate Modern.

Forest Daydream is a videogame forest rebuilt as a physical space. Players explore it together and play small games hidden in the landscape; finishing one changes the world’s time of day and weather. The soundscape, by Ben Kelly, mixes familiar game tones with his field recordings from the Amazon region of Peru, home to the Wampís, whose songs and forests he was the first to record.

My part was the electronics: designing the circuits and the layout of the components, and soldering most of them. I also made the video.

Holding one of the hand-soldered circuit boards, a microcontroller and wiring on perfboard
One of the hand-soldered circuit boards.
Illuminated arcade buttons being tested on the floor
Testing the arcade buttons.
A lit button mounted into one of the play stations
A button mounted into a play station.
The dome’s timber frame under construction in the studio
The timber frame under construction in the studio.
The dome in its final stages, glowing green among hexagonal lights
The dome in its final stages.
The exhibition poster on the London Underground
The exhibition poster on the London Underground.

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