Explosion village, Roskilde Festival (September 2008)

The village is built around the Explosion Tower, which looks like a mix of a derrick and the Eiffel Tower. It is surrounded by luminous stones, and when you make grooves with others on these stones, shooting flames are released from the top of the tower out into the sky.

Explosion Village explored the possibility of creating massive audience participation. The Explosion Village could accommodate two hundred participants and consisted of water tanks that reacted to drumming. If the participants played fast and enthusiastically together for a certain amount of time, a supersized gas cannon would go off at the top of a centrally placed tower.

The design created interaction cycles with a duration of fifteen minutes each. This happened as a consequence of participants picking up a rhythm. The rhythm would slowly grow in volume and intensity over time. Drumming would “accumulate” energy in the tower. This was depicted visually via ten light bars which lit individually in sequence as the tower moved closer to the climax. At the climax, the participants would passionately throw their arms in the air and create a loud uproar as the fire went off.

Eight water tanks were equipped with contact microphones. The signal from the microphones was routed through a mixer into a Wiring board, which detected people drumming on the tanks. The drumming was modulated through Ableton Live and sent out to speakers located near the tanks. The amount of drumming would accumulate over time, and when a certain amount of drumming had been reached, a midi signal was sent to Ableton Live which would trigger a countdown sound. After a specific number of seconds, a relay was triggered by the Wiring board which would, in turn, trigger the canon to release gas and ignite.

Video: https://vimeo.com/3990295  

Source code: https://github.com/Illutron/explosionVillage 

Done as a member of illutron.dk with Anders Olsen, Andreas Bennetzen, Annechien Seesink, Casper Øbro, Claus Jørgensen, Daniel Brynolf, Eva Kanstrup, Frederik Hilmer Jensen, Harald Viuff, Helle Falk Jakobsen, Henrik Svarrer Larsen, Jakob Sindballe, Johannes Asker Andersen, Jonas Jongejan, Jun Philip Kamata, Karen Gamborg Knudsen, Kasper Rasmussen, Khorsed Alam, Ki Elvira Roux Fuglsang, Mads Hobye, Marc Cedenius, Mathias Vejerslev, Morten Vendelboe, Nicolas Padfield, Nikolaj Møbius, Peter Madsen, Pia Nielsen, Rikke Rasmussen, Romy Kniewel, Schack Lindemann, Simon Lausten Østergaard, Sofus Walbom Kring, Sonny Windstrup, Stig Eivind Vatne, Tanja Jørgensen, Thomas Fabian Eder, Thomas Jørgensen, Tobi Twang, Vanessa Carpenter and Vibeke Hansen.