Commissioned by Bring To Light Festival NYC.

A collaboration between Creative Coder
Andrea Cuius and Designer Roland Ellis.

A suspended surface of 76 tungsten lamps form a catenary arch, playing host to live performances and revisiting the sounds of the 19th century East River industrial icons. Live adaptation of the soundscape reintroduces routine and mechanical process to the space.

The piece intends to bring back an atmosphere informed by the architectural legacy, a machine being delivered to occupy the space that was once a bustling industrial environment.

By either producing sounds or just reactive to the inputs from the environment, The Company is a sound reactive light installation.

The Company, a machine in a space producing light.


Technical info:

A custom software developed in Cinder(libcinder.org/) control the installation using audio sampled in real time. The sound analysis is computed with Ableton Live using a Max For Live patch developed by Henrik Ekeus(twitter.com/hekeus), it performs the Fast Fourier Transform, beat detection, attack detection and sound filtering, communicating with the custom software through an OSC connection.
The audio input is used by the custom software to modify the behaviour and the properties of objects in a 3D environment containing an exact replica of the actual installation, the position and shape of the objects as well as other properties like speed and intensity, eventually determinate the brightness of each light bulb individually addressed.


Bring To Light NYC:

Bring to Light is a free nighttime public festival of art in New York City that takes place simultaneously with "nuit blanche" events in cities around the world. Inviting emerging and established artists to make site-specific installations of light, sound, performance and projection art, the event creates an immersive spectacle for thousands of visitors to re-imagine public space and civic life. Bring to Light transforms streets, parks and the industrial waterfront of Greenpoint, Brooklyn set against dramatic views of the Manhattan skyline.


Special thanks:

During the event the installation served as host for live performances of New York local bands, each one of them has created a unique reaction and a unique experience, therefore we would like to thanks:

Maria Chavez/Stephan Moore/Suzanne Thorpe(members of Volume) - oddnoise.com/volume/listen.html
Shelley Burgon - shelleyburgon.com/
Friend Roulette - friendroulette.bandcamp.com/
Sky White Tiger - skywhitetiger.com/
Bryce Hackford - brycehackford.bandcamp.com/
Chris Chu - themorningbenders.com/
Timo Ellis
Mark borthwick - markborthwick.com
Zach Layton - zachlaytonindustries.com/
Pilottone - facebook.com/pages/Pilottone/173693699328041


Andrea Cuius // nocte.co.uk // twitter.com/q_says