Micah Elizabeth Scott is a visual and new media artist from the San Francisco area. She started in her craft at a young age. During her teen years, she spent endless time in her family home’s basement tinkering with electronics. With a father who worked as an engineer, she would always take advantage and utilize the spare parts he brought home. As she explored her interests, she became fascinated with reverse engineering parts that she acquired at home. After high school, she went to college where she found herself skipping classes and going to work on her own projects. After college, she went to work for a software engineering company. After working there for some time, she became bored with her day to day life and quit. She went on to join a startup where she made later made the same choice to leave due to a lack of satisfaction. While exploring her interests after quitting her second job, Scott became fascinated with the concept of finding ways for technology to interact with human users.
As an artist, Scott uses a variety of tools to produce her works. With LEDs and coding as her main tools, Scott has also utilized cardboard, wood, laser cut pieces, FadeCandy controllers and many more tools that she must sometimes create to complete her work. She is often creating her pieces with the room for the user to interact and create their own experience with the piece.
The Forest
The Forest is an art piece that spans from floor to ceiling. Done in collaboration with Ryerson University, Scott designed the piece to replicate the feeling and experience of a forest. With LEDs starting at the bottom, they make their way up the piece until they intersect with the circular pools of light. It is at these pools that users can rotate, push and interact with the lights. The LEDs that Scott has programmed here react and mimic like water in fluid motions. The interactions created by users can alter the rest of the piece.
Mobile Cloud Platform
While working with Ardent to create this cloud for Burning Man, Scott was tasked to create the LED network that would allow users to interact with the cloud through app. To accomplish this, Scott created a 3D map of the structure and uploaded it to the app. As a result, users can join and contribute.
Mixcandy
In a 24 hr music hack day, Scott created by board for anyone who’d like to have fun with beats or DJ. By using each button to represent a different part of the song, Scott is able to intelligently make the board interactive by adding inviting lights that dance to the user’s inputs while analyzing the song’s every beat.
Ecstatic Epiphany
Just like ‘The Forest’, Ecstatic Epiphany spans from the ground to the ceiling. Using a glass wall, Scott built a mesh of LED filled squares using a laser cutter. This piece was installed behind the glass wall to create a seamless illusion. And outside, a camera was installed and an algorithm monitored people’s motions and reacted to them through the lights. Scott went beyond and created an algorithm that ensures to never repeat a reaction and that every emotion portrayed through the lights were unique.
