Reactive light environment
Public indoor swimming pool, Dornbirn (A), competition

100cm (light bar)
Light bar with 800 super-bright blue LEDs, waterproof, heated stainless steel housing, computer, sound level meter

Artistic cooperation: Patricia Köstring
Electronics: Alexander Pausch

LAUTUNDLEISE was conceived for the newly-built indoor pool in Dornbirn. The interactive light environment dynamizes the geometries of the structure with ephemeral LED-generated typographic images. At the same time, as a place of different dynamics of movement and individual needs, the indoor pool becomes the motor of LAUTUNDLEISE: the work interacts with the visitors, whose behaviour influences both the selection of the words and the timing in which they appear in sequence.

LAUTUNDLEISE consists of a 1m-high light stick with blue LEDs arranged in four vertical rows, a control unit connected to a sound level meter, and two programmed word directories.

Placed next to the clock and the scoreboard of the competition pool tracks, the work responds to the noise level in the natatorium. The loudness affects the choice of words and the speed in which they shift. The work takes into consideration different phases and times in which the swimming pool is in use: the time when individual swimmers are focused on their performance, and that experience-oriented liveliness when the pool is occupied by families and young people.

The generated words come from two extensive word directories. The gathered terms cover issues such as leisure and health, as well as discourse fields, which deal with social community standards- in fact, with social "wellness" or social utopias. The sphere of the private, of individual desire, meets the public sphere; leisure time meets daily routine; the inside meets the outside.

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