Rain Field, an interactive sound, smell, and light installation, generates weather systems within a 12 foot by 12 foot area in relation to the movement of observers. Through 117 separate audio channels the piece explores sound as a visual and architectural medium, evoking observer’s visual response to sonic stimuli as well as defining volumetric space through acoustics.

left image: The piece installed at Fringe Exhibitions in Los Angeles.

	left video: A recording from the computer interface that controls the installation’s sound and lights. As clouds pass over the square in the center of the video, lighting conditions and the sound of individual rain drops reflect the position of the clouds within a 12′ x 12′ area. Observers, as they move through the space, indirectly control wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation levels that form and move the clouds. The speed of the clouds in this video have been increased for demonstration purposes.
	left image: Here is my electronics studio in a state of extreme disarray. In the center of the mess (or if you hold your mouse over the image) you will see the circuit that I was working on at the time. This circuit communicates with a computer then creates and distributes audio to the 117 speakers individually and in relation to cloud locations.
	left image: This is a little diagram that shows the speaker location in the black platform seen in the other images. Each speaker was independently wired and controlled by a microcontroller. The grid you see is how the piece is modular. The platform is composed of nine pieces that connect together to allow for shipping the whole installation on a single pallet.
	left image: The piece installed in the Baxler Gallery in Boston. This version of the piece operated on motion sensors instead of computer vision.
	left image: This a little photo montage of some of the circuits that I designed and built for the Rain Field installation. This was a beast. Essentially, the resulting hardware is somewhere between a sound system and a computer.
	left image: This was an initial rending that I produced to help explain the idea. The visual does a decent job at explaining what it feels like to be walking on the piece.
	An annoying byproduct of working with spacial sound is that it doesn’t document well. There isn’t a good way of reproducing the sound of 117 speakers though two computer speakers. Instead, this video shows the installation from the perspective of the computer application. left side of video: The screen to the left displays the live weather conditions being generated in responce to viewer movement. the square in the center of the display represents the raised platform located in the installation that is embedded with 117 speakers. As a cloud moves over the square (turning blue in the display) the corresponding speaker locations on the platform will produce the sound of individual rain drops. right side of video: The screen to the right displays the camera view analyzed by the motion tracking system. As viewers experience the piece they are inadvertently determining wind velocity, wind direction, and precipittation levels. These variables create a weather system that determines sound location, density, and volume , as well as the light levels from four overhead lights. The raised platform with 117 channels of sound is seen as the black mass in the display.
	left video: Here you see a very early test of a piece of the main control board. What you see happening is the controller board moving the sound around the speakers initially seen on the right of the video. This system was eventually redesigned and each speakers was driven by a leg from a PIC microcontroller. It’s still a good representation of how the whole piece works on a much smaller scale.
	left image: The post card for the exhibition at the Baxler Gallery in Boston. It’s a close up photo of the matting used on the top of the platform.  This material along with the way the platform was built creates a feeling of earth below you.  The ground varied in strength; some area’s sank down under your weight while others much less so.