The light from the sun is what gives life to everything on this planet, yet it is not as simple as it seems. Light is a FUNdamental source of energy that beguiles and attracts students like moths to a flame. Light behaves in so many different ways: transmission, absorption, reflection, refraction, diffraction, scattering, polarization and interference. All these variations make a simple source of light a very complex physics concept for any student to absorb. At the Science Mill, we focus on making these “invisible” scientific concepts visible to all learners - young and old alike.

-Amber Middlebrook, Director of Education Partnerships

When the Science Mill wanted to commission a new exhibit to occupy one of the former grain mill’s six iconic silos, the museum faced some challenges. “Our silos are a coveted space,” says Bradley Gray, the Science Mill’s Director of Museum Experience. “We didn’t quite know how to capitalize on the height and use the space to its fullest extent” Founder & Board Chair, Bonnie Baskin reached out to Brooklyn-based interaction design company Patten Studio, where Art Director and trained lighting designer Hortense Duthilleux proposed an artwork that turned out to be the perfect fit for the silo.

Light Loom is an interactive kinetic sculpture that teaches children about the properties of additive color.

A rope is anchored to the ceiling of a renovated grain silo. A motor at the base churns the rope, forming a physical wave. Red, green, and blue LEDs illuminate the sculpture from below, combining to bathe Light Loom in white light. As the rope passes through the light, a “persistence of vision” optical illusion splits the white light up into its constitutive colored beams. The primary colors of light: red, green, and blue—but also the secondary colors: cyan, yellow, and magenta—separate out from one another in bands.

“We thought that this would be a really cool way to teach kids about the concept of additive color,” shares Hortense Duthilleux, Patten Studio’s Art Director. “Kids learn about subtractive color at a very young age. This is the color wheel you are taught in art class, which teaches you about what happens with color when it is being reflected and absorbed by something physical. Additive color refers to how different wavelengths of pure light behave when they are not being reflected or absorbed by anything. It’s the exact opposite!”

“The utilization of the silo for this exhibit is phenomenal,” Gray shares. “From top to bottom you have color change at a level that I don’t think most folks have really seen before. Watching the light be separated by value is quite the experience, and to see that happen in real time . . . is truly a beautiful blend of art and science.”

Light Loom is engaged through a touch-free console. By interacting with the different colored optical sensors on the console, visitors dim either red, green, or blue light, forming different additive color combinations. Through play, visitors discover that red and green form yellow, red and blue form magenta, blue and green form cyan, and white light is produced when all three primary colors coincide.

“What is very exciting with this installation is that it allows people to create their own mix of color,” Duthilleux says. “That gives them the opportunity to learn about additive color through a process of play and discovery.”

The Science Mill and Patten Studio share a commitment to interactivity. “We want guests to take away a hands-on experience that is memorable and allows guests to have an ‘aha’ moment,” Gray adds. “Light Loom is meeting the interactive mark. It’s also quite innovative. There’s nothing quite like it at the museum. Our guests are allowed to be hands-on with the artwork without physically touching it, which is very important in this day and age.

Meet the Creative Team behind the Light Loom Exhibit Design:

Hortense Duthilleux & James Patten of Patten Studio

I am Hortense Duthilleus. I am a French artist and designer mainly working in the field of interactive light art. I am also the Art Director at Patten Studio. I create interactive art installations for museums and for brands, essentially trying to create interactive experiences that inspire others and give them a moment of wow!

What was your journey into your current field?

My journey into art, science, and also engineering and technology started in Paris, France, where I am from. I started to study art and study textile design, which is where I fell in love with colors and experimentation with materials. That journey continued into my Masters degree in London where [I studied] material exploration called “Material Future”. We had [an] opportunity to keep exploring matter, and so I picked light. I started to be exposed to circuit boards and sensors and ways to make that artwork myself and learned a bit of coding and soldering. I was able to start developing the type of artwork I had in mind [to] develop my portfolio to then approach Patten’s studio. By then, I had developed that skillset from different work experiences as a lighting designer and as a set designer that allowed me to integrate into the team.

How did you become interested in working in STEM?

I had a physics teacher that explained to us color and light and how those two interact together. That sparked my fascination and encouraged me to explore more and more into this field. I was seeing people working with interactive art installations and people using light to create light shows and having a person interact with the artwork to create an ever-changing artwork. That’s really what I realized I wanted to do , so when I was 18 years old and I had to find my way to go from doing textile design to doing engineering and technical work.

Tell us about your experience as a Girl working in STEM:

As a female, I have always felt well-received [in my field]. I’ve never experienced specific pushback. If you do not consider yourself any different from anyone else, and that is what you project to others, that is what others will see. I think that if you just keep thinking you are an individual and you are worthy in that field, you will earn everyone’s respect. When you have that statement for yourself and dare to express who you are as an individual and a person, I think everyone will appreciate that and welcome you.

What would you say to your younger self?

At the moment I wanted to do this kind of thing, I had no clue how I would get there or do it. I felt like I did not have the toolset to be legitimate in that space. So what I would want to tell you is pursue your vision. If there is something you are passionate about and if other people are doing it, there is no reason that you cannot be doing it as well. So follow your passion and work toward it and it will come true.

Tell us what or who inspires you:

The role models were definitely those companies, those small studios that work with light and interactive technologies… There are artists like James Terrel who worked with light only … a lot of those artists that use minimal work, but that work with color and optical illusion and vision were all the kind of work that inspired me.

My name is James Patten and I am the Director of Patten Studio. Patten Studio builds, broadly speaking, interactive art installations… we create interactive experiences in the physical world that usually involve technology to give people an experience they haven’t had before. One of the themes in our work is connection. We are trying to create experiences that provide people with an opportunity to strike up a conversation with a stranger.

Tell us about your journey into your current role:

I went on to do a PhD at the MIT Media lab and the focus of my work there was all about creating new kinds of interfaces between people and computers. In particular, there was a focus on using physical objects to represent and control information inside of a computer. Ever since then, I’ve been really passionate about this idea of creating experiences that involve some element of computation but where the interaction happens in the real world and this added element of computation creates an opportunity for a really playful experience.

How did you become interested in working in STEM?

I always have had a passion for making things. I had a brief stint in engineering school in undergrad before realizing that all of the math maybe wasn’t necessarily for me. So I wound up with a very interdisciplinary education as an undergraduate with kind of a mix of computer science, psychology, and philosophy.

Tell us about your creative team at Patten Studio:

We have engineers that realize that they would rather be artists and artists that realize they would rather be engineers. They’ve picked up skills from different disciplines along the way… I think the thing that really brings it all together is working across disciplines. The kinds of disciplines that are involved are electrical engineering, computer science, visual arts, graphic design, and other engineering and art fields as well.

light loom