Space Puddle
Space Puddle was conceived, designed, and fabricated during Verdant Studio Artist Lead Dayton Castleman’s 2022 “Maker in Residence” tenure at The Scott Family Amazeum in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Goals of the project were to create a playful and educational interactive exhibit for the family-oriented museum’s upcoming exhibition season exploring the behavior of light. Space Puddle utilizes a large pool of water as a fluid lens to produce and project the behavior and interaction of radiating waves onto the floor surface below the suspended sculpture/machine. Viewers trigger the production of the waves by moving beneath IR sensors fixed to the underside of the projector, dancing and immersing themselves in the dynamic patterns created within the diffracted light field below.