Holy Particle

Holy Particle is a large-scale sculptural installation developed by Samuel Swope as a component of the performance manτεία (manteia), written and produced by Roberto Alonso Trillo and Peter Nelson. The work transforms industrial materials into a living, responsive environment where piles of car tires serve as the foundation for an intricate feedback system of smoke, sound, and light. Smoke machines release plumes that become active participants in the piece, their movement tracked by a 360-degree camera and processed through custom optical flow tracking code written by Swope, built on the Lukas-Kanade method.

The installation operates as a self-generating ecosystem where each element influences the other. As smoke moves through the space, its patterns trigger audio synthesis; the resulting sound determines smoke volume, while movement data controls the stage lighting. This creates an ever-shifting sensory landscape where cause and effect blur into a unified experience. Swope's real-time sonification system, written in SuperCollider and utilizing Fluid Corpus Manipulation's neural network synthesis, translates the ephemeral movements of smoke into spatialized audio that emanates from strategically placed subwoofers and speakers.

Through this technological divination system, Holy Particle searches for meaningful patterns within seemingly random movements. The work suggests that significance emerges not from predetermined choreography but from our impulse to find order in chaos. By synthesizing computer vision, machine learning, and industrial materials, the installation renders perceptible the usually unnoticed relationships between atmospheric movement and acoustic space.