Tree of Generations

The Tree of Generations is a 27 foot tall cast aluminum sculptural centerpiece for a gilded-era bank hall that was brought back to life as part of a tech-forward, state of the art visitor's center on Pennsylvania Ave in DC. The new public experience center aims to proposition the general public with questions about what constitutes the "american dream" today, inviting guests to partake in an ongoing dialogue about the reality of what this shared vision is and could be. This installation allows visitors to take selfies at nearby kiosks and have them sent onto the leaves of the tree, turning the canopy into a living mosaic of the American people. In addition to displaying a rotating collection of individual portraits, all of the screens are capable of functioning as a unified canvas that can coordinate larger spectacles along with the other screens and soundsystem in the space.

The tree holds almost 1000 flexible OLED displays, each consisting of a dedicated purpose-built SBC and enclosure running a custom native graphics app. These SBC's are hardwired via dozens of managed switches to a central machine running a bespoke media server. The media server is running a Unity app and a python backend, which coordinate the various states of the canopy along with handling media uploads from the the selfie kiosks to the leaves.

Technical design and software development was executed by myself alongside a dedicated team of AV designers and other installation technicians. The custom SBC consists of a carrier board for the RPi CM4 and accompanying LAB-branded HDMI connector designed by Fletcher Bach, inside a printed enclosure designed by Anthea Viloria. The nicest-looking photos above were taken by Fletcher Bach.