This installation was an interdisciplinary collaborative effort to integrate technology and art into three sites within Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Project goals were to create interactive experiences for visitors, both to inspire their curiosity about and reverence for the arboretum and to highlight issues of land management and community stewardship.
The shrine installation consisted of nearly 200 plexiglas luminaries resembling miniaturized Shinto shrines, which were illuminated by white LEDs. These little houses were made available in the peony garden for visitors to place in locations of personal significance. Within hours of the show's opening the shrines had been distributed throughout the arboretum, ending up on rocks, under bushes, in the trees, and several were grouped on a hillside to spell "I (heart) U."
The invasive species installation, located along a wooded trail, generated visitor-triggered light sequences that illustrated the distribution of tree species in the stand. The components of this work consisted of ultrasonic range finders for motion detection, circuit boards for sequence control and colored-coded LED rope lights. The abundant red-banded invasive buckthorns clearly outnumbered the white, green and blue-banded native oaks, cherries, and hickories.
The prairie TV installation was a video work located in the Dow Prairie and consisted of one television nearly buried, screen-side up, resembling an electric campfire. A video documenting a fall prairie burn administered by students from the School of Natural Resources looped on the screen, and when viewed from a distance at dusk, the orange flickering of the screen resembled the burn's rejuvenating flames.
Digital Kami was developed with the support of a grant from the University of Michigan's Digital Media Commons through the GROCS (grant opportunities [collaborative spaces]) program. The team included: Russ Kuhner from the School of Music, Carrie Morris from the School of Art & Design, Mike Yun and Tao Zhang from the School of Natural Resources.
* Kami is the Shinto term for nature spirit
