‘Shrumen Lumen’ by FoldHaus Art Collective

Five years ago, I experienced an amazing piece of media art at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., that used a sensing system. It was so unforgettable that I want to share it with others. Shrumen Lumen premiered at Burning Man 2016, and is currently on view at The Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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These are the videos I took five years ago.

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How to interact

• Each mushroom responds to human interactions. As participants step on the footpads located beneath each cap, the mushrooms grow and breathe. In daylight the grouping appears ethereal white, while at night, it magically transforms as embedded LEDs glow through the translucent outer skin.

Making process

• Each mushroom is made of 18 sheets of corrugated plastic, a total of 83 square meters, hand-folded and carefully welded together. A solid mechanical structure made of aluminum and steel defines the shape of the mushroom head. An umbrella-like mechanism powered by an industrial actuator causes the cap to change shape. Pressure pads, located at the base of the mushroom, activate the movement, and at night, over 1,600 LED lights create a spectacle for those near and far. Nearly every one of the hundreds of parts for each mushroom were custom made by the FoldHaus team.
• 1. Paper Prototype → 2. Full Size Prototype → 3. Motor Actuation → 4. Engineering → 5. Interaction Design → 6. Mass Production
  1. Interaction Design
     • In addition to soldiering hundreds of LED strips and programming light patterns for the Shrumens, the Interaction Design team developed pressure pads that people could step on to activate the mushrooms to change shape.

1. Paper Prototype

2. Full Size Prototype

3. Motor Actuation

1. Interaction Design

1. Engineering

1. Mass Production

Designing the digital interaction

Not only are we installing 1560 LED lights in each mushroom, we are also designing ways for visitors to interact with the mushrooms. By standing on certain pads, burners can change the color and movement of the Shrumens. Each pad can also measure weight, so, for example, if two people hop on a certain pad, more of the structure will turn red.

To make this work, we are using a network of Raspberry Pis in each stem. Powered by 12 volt batteries, the minicomputers control both light and movement. Each of the 1560 LEDs in the stem and cap are independently addressable, and the chip in each LED only uses one pin for data input and output, so they must be controlled with precise timing. The team chose to use a Pixel Pusher microcontroller because of its power (it can control 4000 LEDs) and built-in libraries. Processing, running on the Raspberry Pi, pushes color combinations and scenes. The Raspberry Pi also monitors the load cells, which are placed in those lighted platforms at the base of the mushroom. When visitors step on, these load cells can trigger the mushrooms to change shape or color.