The Nissan LEAF electric vehicle was one of Norway's most sold cars – not just EVs – in 2012. To acknowledge Norway's position as a forerunner in personal commuting, we wanted to create a memorable live experience for all LEAF owners. Drawing inspiration from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Daft Punk’s live gigs and Guitar Hero games, we built the World’s Biggest Electric Organ from the 50 LEAFs that actual LEAF owners had brought with them to the event. Each LEAF had multiple lights that were controlled by the music our LEAF owners created in real-time with our touch-based app.
From watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we knew what building blocks we needed: a huge array of lights, a PA system and finally a big touchscreen-based controller app for all of this. We harnessed the power of TUIO and MIDI protocols to enable dispatching user touch events to our app to the actual lighting board used to drive the multiple lights inside each of the 50 Nissan LEAFs. The app was controlled via a multi-touch screen and featured an auto-arpeggiator, user-controlled chordal progressions and other special effects, giving the LEAF owners, freedom to create their own music.
