Saccadia promotes an unfamiliar visual perspective and prods people to help those around them to see it. As an unmonitored public canvas, Saccadia simultaneously inspires both collective creativity and individual anarchy—its images documenting a war between refinement and ruin.
Saccadia‘s name is inspired by the term “saccade”, which is a rapid movement of both eyes between fixation points. One can see Saccadia‘s images by moving one’s eyes in such saccades, fixating alternately between imaginary points on either side of the illuminated mast.
Saccadia repurposes parts from Persistence (Burning Man 2023). Saccadia’s mast is 28 feet high and supports 840 flickering, green LEDs (30% more than Persistence). Participants create the images that are displayed by Saccadia using a new 5-foot wide console with 1,260 illuminated pushbuttons. Then Saccadia flickers its LEDs, sending each participant’s news afar.
Update: September 4, 2024: I allowed too little time to complete the wiring of the console before Burning Man 2024, and so we deployed just the light stick with programming and images from Persistence. Next year for sure! See comments in the subreddit r/BurningMan.