The Light Within

“Light at the end of the tunnel” is an age-old known idiom. Light is what we want to see when we are in our darkest moments, giving us hope that things will be okay. But what if the 'light at the end of a tunnel' actually comes from within? The Light Within aims to show that we all have a 'Light Within' that, when at its brightest, can do great things.

The public is invited to stand in front of the exhibit, facing the camera located at the top of the ping-pong wall. The sculpture is like a mirror, it turns the individual into the art piece itself - without the subject, the exhibit is not complete. Once in position, an illuminated version of the individual is projected onto the ping-pong wall. The act of using the dials and confronting the image projected in front of the user therefore challenges viewers to renew their perception of themselves and to realise the beauty of their inner light. The image of the subject can further be manipulated with a series of dials that can be used to augment the image being projected. One dial can be used to adjust how pixelated the image is, while the second dial can alter the image from black and white to a vibrant colour display. The image being projected will become clearer, more colourful and brighter.

Supported by The Engineering Ideas Clinic and University of Waterloo Engineering

Daniel Pechersky, Charlie Wang, Joseph Kinsella, Brian Le, Richard Shi and the WLED Community for contributing to the software and coding, and Abdallah Arar, Sabrina Lopresti, Yisan Jun, and Kevin Tran.

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