04
Drop Ceiling
About this project
Drop Ceiling is an open-source interactive light installation that transforms standard office ceiling panels into a responsive, learning artwork. Four lighting units — each built from three 2 ft × 2 ft LED ceiling lights joined by 3D-printed connectors — hang in a street-level window. A pair of security cameras watch the sidewalk below, and a real-time computer vision system translates pedestrian movement into animated light behavior using only open data protocols.
The light has a personality. When no one is around it wanders gently, pulsing and drifting. When someone stops beneath the panels it locks on, brightens, and begins to breathe in rhythm with them. Over days and weeks an auto-tuning system adjusts the light's character to match the patterns of the site — learning when people are likely to stop, which attraction strategies work, and how energetic to be at different times of day.
No images of people are stored or transmitted. The vision system outputs only anonymous floor-plane coordinates.