domino effect: a creative notebook

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120 tumbling dominos and their distinctive clicking sound come together this winter until January 27, in a festive interactive experience in the Place des Festivals, for the ninth annual Luminothérapie event.

domino effect, a new installation by Ingrid Ingrid, was created by a passionate multidisciplinary team. Their only desire: to spread some joy! We take a look at the creative process with the studio’s creative director, Geneviève Levasseur.

To create this fun participatory installation, Ingrid Ingrid assembled a top-flight multidisciplinary team with a passion for interactive art. There’s a simple recipe behind this unusual piece: plenty of intuition and technical skill, some trial and error, deep affection for winter and, above all, a love of creative work.

1. Touch, handle, play : a game of giant dominos

“It’s rare that people can really play with art installations like our dominos that you can manipulate with your hands. That’s what drove us to come up with the idea of using dominos,” says Levasseur.

The team had a lot of fun imagining different ways to generate encounters around the dominos.

2. The meeting at the heart of the experience

“The 9^th edition of Luminothérapie was the meeting. The pleasure of interaction leads Ingrid Ingrid to connect with the essence of human relations, the beauty of cooperation and collective motion. We use technology to enhance interaction between people,” she says.

“The digital realm is a gateway to human contact, and to a very tangible relationship with objects and the environment.”

4. Tropical climate : to get warmer

domino effect fights the cold with a palette of warm tropical colours.

“We wanted it to be playful and joyous,” Levasseur explains. “We also thought it was important that this warm effect should have just as much impact in the daytime as at night, when the dominos glow brightly in the dark.”

3. The love of winter : the search of materials

“We were thoroughly obsessed with the search for cold-proof materials.” says Levasseur.

Devising an installation that would stand up to extreme temperatures, ice and freezing rain was quite an adventure for the domino effect team.

5. A true orchestra : What is generative sound?

This is the technology used by Myriam Bleau, Sound designe, to generate sound from the movement of objects. It’s what allows everyone to play with the dominos and be a musician for a moment.

“We wanted a combination of digital and analogue sounds, to ensure a certain warmth. We love the flute, so there’s plenty of flute. And we had fun playing with the human voice by creating multiple series of onomatopoeias and mouth sounds. It also seemed effective to use drawn-out, airy sounds that have a pleasing resonance, like the marimba. ”

6. Tumbling dominos, animated : the videoprojection

The architectural projection, by Nouvelle Administration, is even more colourful.

“Thanks to its flexibility, video supports a larger colour palette,” Levasseur explains. “We also wanted to bring in the classic black and white associated with dominos, by working with dots and lines. It’s the best of both worlds!”

domino effect by Ingrid Ingrid
December 11, 2018 to January 27, 2019