Sofia Aronov’s “Awake” is an interactive painting that combines paint, projected light, and capacitive sensors to create an engaging, “choose-your-own-adventure” viewing experience. Viewers are guided to follow their curiosity and explore the coral reef painting. When viewers touch a piece of coral, the painting comes to life with projections of marine-life animations. The experience for each viewer is unique depending on which marine element the user decides to interact with and the order of their interactions.

This piece is the first iteration of a series of interactive paintings that use sensor triggers and projected light. The marine illustrations were painted on white paper with Bare Conductive, a conductive ink. Each individual marine element is connected to an Arduino Uno via alligator clips on the back of the painting. The Arduino gathers proximity data and sends it to a Processing sketch, which triggers the projected animations. 

Learn more about the project here.

Images & Video: Sofia Aronov