Shifting Light, Blooming Color
MIT First-Year student Lucinda Sun, a member of the DesignPlus Learning Community, creates experiences involving users through reactive elements such as key-activated noise and spin randomization. Her explorations of light and colors transform interaction into a dynamic, ever-changing canvas of motion and response.
By Adelaide Zollinger
Mar 13, 2025
What did you make?
These visuals were explorations of light and colors, involving the audience/user in creating distinct experiences through reactive elements such as key-activated noise and spin randomization, as well as a clicker-controlled color reaction. In the blooming colors design, clicking and holding creates cloud-like bursts of color according to a pre-determined ramp component. In the shifting lights design, users may press the “1” key to alter the seed of the noise and the “2” key to change the spin direction.
Why did you make it?
Over IAP (Independent Activities Period), I sought to familiarize myself with all kinds of design programs, including TouchDesigner (TD). I was especially interested in its ability to create interactive/reactive visuals and the organic, fluid aesthetics often presented in other people's TD creations. These two projects were a part of my journey to understand this complex but rewarding software.
Video courtesy of Lucinda Sun
How did you make it?
For both, I followed tutorials by supermarket sallad on Youtube. Prior to these creations, I had learned and grew comfortable with many common strategies/approaches through free online resources offered by creators such as Acrylicode and PJ Visuals.
What will you make next?
Moving forward, I'll begin creating original designs without the help of complete tutorials. Recently, I've found tracing and blob-tracking especially interesting and will likely be delving into video detection projects. I'm also excited to start experimenting with the free open-sourced MediaPipe plugin for TD and playing around with real-time tracking using my webcam as a source.
Video courtesy of Lucinda Sun