Neon Garden: Interactive Live Animations

I had the coolest experience creating interactive live animations for Walking Thomastown, a free public event hosted by the City of Whittlesea.

For this project, I got to experiment with Tagtool, a very simple and accessible animation software designed for creating visuals and sending them directly to a large screen or projection. What I found really interesting was how intentionally minimal the software is. The interface is simple and straightforward, allowing you to focus on creating and performing rather than getting caught up in complicated technical processes.

For the animations, I created a collection of bright, simple assets that could be layered and combined in different ways. Many of the assets were separated into individual slices and layers, allowing me to manipulate them live and create movement on the screen.

Because the work was being projected onto mesh, a lot of fine detail could easily become lost through the softness and blur of the projection. This meant that the artwork needed to be designed with bold shapes, vibrant colours and recognisable forms that could still read clearly from a distance.

I was originally brought in to create animations live during the event, so creating these additional assets wasn't actually necessary...However, this was a public event with more than 4,000 participants coming through to experience the work, which definitely added a bit of pressure!

Having a collection of premade assets became a really useful way for me to warm up and get comfortable with the software before diving into the live animation itself. It gave me the chance to experiment with the different layers, movement and ways of interacting with the visuals without the pressure of having to create everything from scratch in front of an audience.