The Digital Grotto @ Ingenuity 2025

Debuting September 26, 2025 at Ingenuity Festival 2025. The Digital Grotto is an immersive installation and soundscape composition. Echoing themes from Italian Renaissance grottos, DIY/outsider art, digital art, and avant garde music, the piece occupies a 20' by 30' corner of a floor of the warehouse. Giant foam blocks become marble, wood panels become stone and brick walls. From the arbors hang a sound installation that is the focus of the piece.

Water is pumped to a tank at the top, where it flows by gravity through pipes to a series of columns and hanging stacks of cups. The cups have drip holes and sensors and the water eventually drips into receptacles. Drips are sensed by infrared break-beam sensors and the events trigger sounds. The end result is an emergent soundscape composition. All sounds are driven by simple triggers—a lot of them, a mass of synthetic insects, birds, plucked strings, etc. The listener is invited to experience the piece and to return to hear how the sounds evolve and change with the changing flows of water.

The crew: Tom Stoll [project lead, concept, audio and sensors] - Morgan Ferweda-Campanella [lead artist/metalwork, ] - Scott Conard - Sean Argyle - Mr. Kevin Williams - Dina Hoeynck - Sophy Warner - Noah Andrews - Sam Harmon - Ian Keating-Mullaney - Justice Smith - Matthew Gee - The Ingeneers. Many thanks to Emily Appelbaum and all those who contributed.