VVOXSTUDIO designed and built a motion-censored map capturing New York City‘s soundscape, called SONOS Sounds of New York City. The artistic installation was exhibited in  NeueHouse for Sonos Studios, where visitors were invited to audibly explore the city’s geography, culture and architecture.

The mesmerizing moving sculpture is made of locally sourced ash wood. Inspired by the Microsoft logo, the sculpture is also made up of 80 Ultra motion linear actuators, 160 custom milled wooden tiles and 10 micro-controllers. As if it was alive and breathing, Momentum moves when it senses human motion. Custom LEDs light up, illuminating with the wave-like movement. When users interact with the sculpture, it feels as though Momentum is gracefully following your every move.

To create fun interactive lights, Sonos Play: 1 speakers were gutted and embedded with internal LEDs to create the pulsating, color-changing effect. Each speaker was fastened to a VVOX custom-built step motor frame that drove the speaker toward or away from the user via Kinect sensors. Over a mile of wiring was needed to pull the whole thing off in a short couple of weeks.