Picasso Stage Props
Apple and Peach2023, with Alina Liu
The heart of “breath” is an Arduino nano that controls 7 pairs of transistors that toggle pumps and valves. A GPIO expander is included due to the limited IOs available. We wrote a class/library to use in Arduino IDE that allows us to control each balloon in minimum lines of code.
All hardware is fixed to a 3D-printed back panel, which is fastened together with 2 layers of acrylic sheets on each side with nylon screws and bolts.
One white balloon (the biggest balloon) is presented as the center of the installation. Blue balloons surround the white balloon, all inflating at different speeds and duration. The randomness can result in the white balloon being compressed, displaced, or exploded.