VENTS is an immersive exhibition installation designed for “SEE-ING: The Environmental Consciousness Project” at University of North Carolina at Charlotte; a responsive environment that relates the moving air at separate locations using real-time data transmission.

At eight feet above the floor, an array of suspended umbrellas emits a “rain” of air puffs. Each umbrella module consists of a pair of kinetic mechanisms with embedded LEDs reacting to computed environmental data. These invisible “breezes,” felt on the skin, become visible as rings of colored droplets of fog and light.

VENTS stitches the ten unique responses to the exhibition theme into a choreographed seeing experience that, for a moment, questions and celebrates both the possible presence of technological facts, and the profound joy of experiencing the effects. As visitors finding their own paths wandering between large images and digital screens that are oriented non-orthogonality on the floor, they at times encounter fog rings passing right by, dancing on the mulch, or collapsing onto the skin. The awareness of air movements elsewhere is triggered by the constructed atmosphere within the room.