INTERACTIVE GARDEN Since coming to NYC from Los Angeles I feel both light and nature deprived. My project is an attempt to use light to influence nature--specifically by creating an interactive garden. Thinking about community gardens where everyone gets a specific size space to grow whatever vegetables or flowers they choose, I want to use the table space as a stand in for that plot of land. When there is very little light coming into the camera sensor the garden will be just a bed of grass. The flowers geminating (metaphorically) under the earth. As light begins to enter the system the flowers will begin to grow, animating to their full form when a maximum light capacity has been reached. The user interface will be to calculate the ambient light as well as user gestures on or above the surface of the table. When a user passes their hand over the grass where the seed of a flower is located the flower will begin to grow. Usually when people interrupt a light source or camera they create shadows that lessen the amount of light reaching the surface, so in this case when that happens the equation will have to be reversed so that less light is interpreted as more. and more light will equal more flowering. The garden will house different types of flowers in different colors. These shape and the growth of these flowers will be imaginary. They will emanate from different positions on the table, sprouting new leaves or scaling in shape and size as they receive more light. The leaves and branches will sway in an imaginary wind. The experience of viewing the garden will be one that evokes joy and meant to have a playful nature. The garden has the ability to become overpopulated and appear jungle-like. When this happens if the light is reduced some of the flowers will begin to shrink. A mechanism will need to be built into the programming to indicate when maximum growth has been reached and how long that state remains visible before the flowers begin to shrink. very crude example of animation image of table with garden projection