Tech

WEB APP: Dan Deacon wants you to design his light show

by Mark Teo

Months back, electronic experimenter (and general party dude) Dan Deacon developed an app that did two things: First, it functioned as an instrument, allowing fans to create their own Deacon-esque glitches and whirrs. Secondly, during live performances, the app turned the audience’s smartphones into a synchronized light show. Check out the seizure-inducing results below:

Pretty cool, no? Well, now, Deacon’s asking fans to develop their own custom light show for his upcoming tour with Animal Collective. Using an online editor developed by Wham City Lights, fans are being asked to program their own LED-lit performance and submit it to Deacon. He’s also provided “Guildford Avenue Bridge,” the massive opener from his latest album, America, as a backing track. (Though, interestingly, the app allows you to program a light show to any song you wish, meaning we’ve spent all morning adding strobes to Elliott Smith tracks.)

“Since it’s a brand new technology and a new way to think about lighting, each night was a trial and error learning experience,” Deacon wrote on his website. “In that time I’ve really begun to learn the strengths of the app and what it can do—but I only see it from the stage.

“The app is made for the audience to interact with. So the developers and I thought it would be awesome to call on you, my fans, to experiment with the light show itself. For my upcoming US tour with Animal Collective, we will be using light shows generated by fans themselves.”

Check out a few of the submissions, or get to designing your own light show here. Check a few stills of the light-show editor below: