Light can transcend any language and communicate in such way and means, that humans can use it to say many different things. Set a certain mood, drive the attention to something, facilitate a meticulous task, etc. Using this as a metaphor, my light object consists on a telephone that turns voice into light. Instead of decoding a set alphabet when someone speaks, the light flashes and fades show rhythm and intensity. You can guess what is the other person saying by seeing the light.
I chose the telephone to dress the installation, because it is an object most people can distinguish as something you are supposed to speak to and then wait for an answer. To establish a dialogue, two phone booths are needed. They are meters apart from each other to help the user to focus only in the flashing light rather than the words. By removing the possibility of hearing the other person, people would be able to appreciate other characteristics of a speech and gather conclusions.
The installation was presented in DogA (Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture) in a collective exhibition of the final projects of second year Product Design of Oslo University College.
Using Arduino, I built a crossed-communication system between cabins. The received sound on one booth, transforms in light on the other.
The microphone was specially designed and 3D printed to fit the components.