Digital
WATERFALL
Wall

Falling water has the same hypnotic effect as rolling surf, flickering flames,
or roiling clouds.

Our vivid perceptions of the world, are actually the collated results of a huge number of relatively independent processors, merged into the seemingly seamless "reality" we experience.

Our consciousness is a highly volatile sub realm of our minds, separated from this massive processing power by an imperfect cognitive firewall, breeched most often by mental illness, dreams, and chemically mediated feedback from our limbic system. Images, impressions and ideas float through our awareness as fleeting qualia, disappearing almost instantly into our memories.

In this analogue of the process, words spoken, and noises heard are reproduced in a falling curtain of water. A series of small high-speed valves controlled by a computer, much like in an ink jet printer, release water droplets that fall as a moving ribbon of images, stretching and disintegrating until they are merged into the pool at the base.

FORM FACTOR

A Proscenium Arch, approximately 4m wide by 2.5m high, will support a horizontal copper manifold on the underside of the lintel, having a linear array (1cm O.C.) of small (approx 1mm port) electronically actuated valves operating at approximately 100hz, and releasing approx .02ml of water in each cycle. A CPU will control these droplets by adjusting the duration, (therefore size) and interval (therefore spacing) of the cycles to form graphic images as the the water falls under the force of gravity into a reflecting pool.

A Lighting system composed of a number of small hard sources colored by computer controlled, rotating dichroic glass leaves, will be placed above and behing the lintel of the arch, so that the instruments cannot be seen by the observers. Signals from the CPU will control current to the lamps (therefore intensity) and the angle of the leaves (therefore color).

FUNCTIONS

Microphones on either side of the Waterfall will pick up sounds from the environment, and interpret them. Words spoken by an observer will be translated to images of text or pictures, which will be reproduced in the falling curtain. The computer will calculate the observer's distance from each mike, and cause the image to fall directly in front of the observer.

Backlighting will cause the droplets to sparkle as they fall and be adjusted to suggest emotional connotations by the CPU controlling the intensity and color of the light. Words in a database, such as warm and cold, blue and red, happy and sad, will be illuminated with the obvious pre-determined colors. In addition, voice stress analyzer software will detect the emotional tone of the observer's speech, and light the fall accordingly.