----This is an art installation I designed and built for my thesis. The six octagon frames were made of acrylic, and LED strips were stuck to both sides of each frame. LED strips on each frame changed their brightness according to an Arduino program. Each frame was in the figure of the Bagua(the Eight Trigram). Paralleled sides of all six octagons formed a six-line Hexagram. The first video is a documentary of the final installation, and the second video is a display of the design concept.

It is said in the traditional Chinese culture that reading the I Ching could help ward off evil. A sick person in Ancient China might have held the I Ching close to them. One Tang Dynasty Prime Minister even expressed that "one can never become an emperor without reading the I Ching".

The I Ching is an ancient Chinese oracle book, and one of the oldest Chinese classical texts. It is considered by scholars to be a very important work because of its influence on future texts and Chinese philosophy.

Legend has it that Fu Xi, China's first emperor, created the diagram of the Eight Trigrams. In the diagram, each Trigram corresponds to a direction that represents a natural force. The diagram was used to interpret the fundamental principles of nature. Later, King Wen of Zhou further developed this diagram and created 64 Hexagrams, made out of 64 possible pairs of Trigrams.

One very important inspiration to me is Theo Jansen's "Strandbeest" walking animals.According to Jansen, "the walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds". It is art that gives life to these structures. Conversely, engineering is what makes his walking animals possible in the first place. His work made me want to add some kinetic component into my design.

The other inspiration for my design is the perspective view. In the perspective view, the relativity between each object is emphasized. In my installation, this kind of relativity is implied by the relationship between Yao, or the lines that make up Hexagrams in the I Ching. In the I Ching, the Yao in a Hexagram are ordered from bottom to top, and each Yao represents a state of development, so the order of Yao represents the cause and consequence of the developing process. The I Ching is also called the Book of Changes, which hints at the transition between each Hexagram. In reference to the real world, the development of events is not absolute: when it reaches a certain point, there could be several possibilities for further development. In applying this concept to lifestyle, we as independent individuals can choose which path we want to follow. Some choose paths that lead to positive consequences, and others choose paths that lead to negative consequences. According to typical Chinese philosophy, a favorable situation can quickly become unfavorable, while an unfavorable situation can become favorable.

The main part of my installation is made up of six octagonal shape frames – arranged from small to large. Each side of the octagons represents a Trigram; together, they symbolize the Eight Trigrams. Each side of each octagon represents a Yao. Each group of parallel sides on the six octagons forms a six-line Hexagram. In the I Ching, each Hexagram consists of Yang Yao and Yin Yao, the former represented by solid lines and the latter by broken lines. In my installation, there are no solid lines and broken lines to represent Yin and Yang. Instead, Yin and Yang are expressed by the brightness of the LED strips that comprise my installation. Yang is represented by the brightest strip or strips, and Yin is represented by the other strips besides the brightest ones. I choose not to express Yin and Yang in a more direct or obvious way due to the technical difficulty of doing so using LED lighting.

There are six groups of LED effects programed in Arduino. The first group will include only one bright strip and five dim strips, which means there will only be one Yang Yao and five Yin Yao in this group of effect. Over time, the brightest strip will transition from the largest octagonal frame to the smallest frame.

The second group of LED effects will include two bright strips and the third will include three bright strips and so on. Ideally the changing brightness of the strips will form a visually beautiful pattern.

The stretching movement is in between the six octagonal frames. The stretching movement between octagonal frames strengthens the sense of perspective that results from the changing brightness of each LED strip.

This I Ching installation can also be used to reflect other ideas and concepts by changing the Arduino code for the changing LED lights. One of my friends set it up in a party and made it interact with the background music. The following video is a documentary recorded during the party.

Download the thesis paper HERE.