From December 10, 2024, to January 5, 2025, the Marquette Commons hosted a unique installation, Oscillation, an interactive artwork brought to our city by the Marquette Public Art Commission (MPAC), with the support of Travel Marquette, Marquette Downtown Development Authority and grant funding from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. Designed by the renowned creative studio The Urban Conga and tour produced by Creos, this world travelling installation is a multisensory experience that invites people to play and interact in ways that public art in Marquette has never done before.
Oscillation is an interactive installation that uses sight, sound, and movement to spark community activity and social interaction through play. The installation acts somewhat like a theremin, an unusual musical instrument that you can play without touching it. As you walk toward the piece, it plays different sounds and pitches depending on your distance from it. And as you move and dance around it, colors reflect and refract light in different
ways based on your angle and position. Oscillation is made up of five parts that are deconstructed from a solid cube using a Voronoi algorithm. The crystal-like forms can be moved around and placed in a variety of formations. The result is totally immersive experience that breaks down social barriers and fuels joyful conversations between strangers.
“Oscillation was designed off this idea of using play to begin to interrupt one’s routine within the public ... view more »
From December 10, 2024, to January 5, 2025, the Marquette Commons hosted a unique installation, Oscillation, an interactive artwork brought to our city by the Marquette Public Art Commission (MPAC), with the support of Travel Marquette, Marquette Downtown Development Authority and grant funding from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. Designed by the renowned creative studio The Urban Conga and tour produced by Creos, this world travelling installation is a multisensory experience that invites people to play and interact in ways that public art in Marquette has never done before.
Oscillation is an interactive installation that uses sight, sound, and movement to spark community activity and social interaction through play. The installation acts somewhat like a theremin, an unusual musical instrument that you can play without touching it. As you walk toward the piece, it plays different sounds and pitches depending on your distance from it. And as you move and dance around it, colors reflect and refract light in different
ways based on your angle and position. Oscillation is made up of five parts that are deconstructed from a solid cube using a Voronoi algorithm. The crystal-like forms can be moved around and placed in a variety of formations. The result is totally immersive experience that breaks down social barriers and fuels joyful conversations between strangers.
“Oscillation was designed off this idea of using play to begin to interrupt one’s routine within the public realm. We wanted to create a piece that would stop people as they walked by and allowed them to not only spark an interaction with the piece but also the people around them. The theremin-like interaction encourages people to work together — to move and dance around the piece to manipulate and change the sounds coming from the installation. As people move around, they also realize the colors begin to change as well, and our hope is that these playful interactions begin to bring strangers together through this moment of play.”
– RYAN SWANSON, The Urban Conga
The Urban Conga is an award-winning, multidisciplinary design studio focused on sparking community interaction and social activity through open-ended play.
Read more about Oscillation and its time in Marquette here: www.mqtcompass.com/blog/public-art/oscillation
Oscillation is supported by a Program Grant from the Michigan Arts & Culture Council.
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