The Intention Tree
A New Holiday Tradition

Introduction

The holiday season is typically a time for Christmas lights and traditional symbolism expressed through shapes, patterns, and colors. Uptown Waterloo wanted to explore a new way to bring the tree at Uptown Square to life, that allowed people to connect and interact – the Intention Tree was the result.

Summary

The 20 foot tall tree was converted in a canvas of light with over 1100 LED spheres strategically placed to allow us to generate unique and vibrant patterns that moved in real-time. These patterns were designed to work with the shape of the tree and explore new ways of moving light not commonly associated with traditional holiday colors or movements.

Beyond the visualizations that cycled through the tree, we wanted to introduce a new way of interacting with this traditional Christmas symbol that also incorporated the months after the holidays that the tree would be up for. The idea was the New Years intention.

We created a button that was placed at the base of the tree that invited people to step up, say their intention for the new year, press the button, the watch it float up the tree into the universe. The tree would react in real-time by creating a visualization of light that would show their intention flying up the tree, then sprinkling back down. Visitors could alter the color of the interaction by changing how long they pressed and held the button, making the experience a little bit different each time.

Installation


Intention Tree 1
Intention Tree 1

Event

This activation is part of The Uptown Waterloo BIA and City of Waterloo Holiday Tree.

Special Thanks

This installation is possible thanks to the generous support of the following people:

  • Jeyas Balaskanthan,

  • Ed Gacparski,

  • Jenny Wettlaufer,

  • Rose Potts.