Firefly Garden

Overview

Though they are rarely seen, there are about 18 species of fireflies in Palo Alto, California. Firefly Garden, a passive installation, brings fireflies and trees to life in the newly designed garden of Sam and Dale Griffin. By mimicking the ethereal “glow” of fireflies and the natural movement of the trees (especially with natural elements such as wind), Firefly Garden highlights natural phenomena that may be often overlooked or unseen. Additionally, by projecting on the concrete structure in the garden, the installation acts as a transparent window to the trees behind the opaque structure—creating an abstract and artistic interpretation of the garden’s natural characteristics. 

Initial Concept & Process

We initially conceptualized the installation to consist of projecting images of the trees from the background onto the concrete structure in order to make the wall "disappear". Additionally, firefly-like glowing spheres would have been projected over the trees.

Iteration

It was quickly realized that projecting an exact image of the trees would look inorganic due to the nature of the projection surface. Instead, Rhino and Grasshopper drawing software packages were utilized to develop a two-dimensional point cloud rendering of the trees behind the concrete wall when stationary. The 1800 points were then converted into glowing spheres using TouchDesigner, and made to react to movement in the surrounding trees by moving within the bounds of the initial image rendering.  

The full installation was projected onto a concrete wall on Carnegie Mellon University's campus. For full details of how Firefly Garden was made, view the video below.