title: temno
year: 2019
author/composer: Alexandros Kontogeorgakopoulos
funded by: the interactional art and hacking camp PIFcamp
first exhibition: Soca, Slovenia, August 2019
temno is a site-specific interactive installation conceived and developed for a forest in Soca valley in Slovenia. 'Temno' means 'dark' in Slovenian but also means 'intersect' in Greek. Both terms are related to the nature of the piece. A series of speakers and light sensors are mounted on the trees and create a light-responsive music environment - soundscape. The installation can be experienced in the daytime due to the continuous changes of the light conditions (sun movement, clouds, leaves movement etc) or even more dramatically in the night time where the visitors can interact with the outdoor space with torches. It was developed in Pure Data embedded in the Bela platform.
The sounds of the installation were designed, performed and recorded with a small synthesizer created by Dr John Richards (Dirty Electronics) from De Montfort University who was also participant in PIFcamp . The sounds where processed by different banks of resonators and triggered and altered by the presence of light in the installation space. Four Bela platotforms with the sensors and the speakers were mounted on the trees in the forest. Bellow there is an example of the soundscape. This example was recorded in the studio and not in the actuall exhibition space.