Illuminated Edge is an interactive light sculpture that welcomes visitors to Akamai's new headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Akamai Technologies, Inc. is a global content delivery network, cybersecurity, and cloud service company, providing web and Internet security services. Akamai wanted the sculpture to create an impactful statement and to show visitors the global scale of Akamai's networking capabilities.

Glimmering shafts of light hang overhead, each representing Akamai hub locations across the globe. Data collected from servers worldwide are translated into dynamic lighting animations and triggered by the visitor via an interactive screen at the lobby level.

Credits:
Concept by Sosolimited
Design by Hypersonic and Sosolimited
Detailed Design, Fabrication, and Installation by Hypersonic
PCB Design by White Wing Logic
Lighting Content by Sosolimited

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone
Heather Blind
Paulina King
Anna Torvaldsdotter
Alex Garcia

Special thanks to:
Jen Storch, David Gould

Read more about this project:

Boston Business Journal

Photos by Sosolimited

Hypersonic worked with artist Kara Walker to create a large-scale animatronic sculpture as the inaugural commission for the Roberts Family Gallery at SFMoMA in San Francisco. The piece is free to the public and will run continuously through Summer 2026.

The full title of the work is:
Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine)
A Respite for the Weary Time-Traveler.
Featuring a Rite of Ancient Intelligence Carried out by The Gardeners
Toward the Continued Improvement of the Human Specious
by
Kara E-Walker

Hypersonic designed, fabricated, and assembled the eight animatronic Dolls in the exhibit. Each Doll has a unique motion and feature set, giving them all their own character and challenges. The Dolls were designed in CAD, with skeletons made from tig-welded aluminum and custom machined parts, and integrated with servo-motor actuators. The "fascia" that gives each body its form were designed based on Kara's sketches. They were then 3D printed and assembled onto the skeletons. Each piece is fitted with custom-made clothing and finally completed with heads, hands, and feet that were 3D scanned and printed based on Kara's models which she sculpted in clay.

Hypersonic is grateful to have collaborated with a fantastic team of people on this project.

Read more in the New York Times.

Credits:
Artist: Kara Walker
Curator: Eungie Joo, SFMoMA
Doll design, fabrication, and installation: Hypersonic
Technical Director: Noah Feehan
Production & project management: Petra Schmidt, Kara Walker Studio
Custom Clothing: Gary Graham
Overall Design: Mike Koller
Exhibit Fabrication: New Project
Fortune paper manufacturing: Avi Geiger
Allison Calhoun and Justice Thomas, Kara Walker Studio

Hypersonic
Bill Washabaugh
Alex Garcia
David Gould
Mischa Langley
Julia Daser
Ashwin Barama

Many thanks to:
Marc Agger, for use of his warehouse
Kevin Binkert
The entire production team at SFMoMA including: Alex Dangles, Anna Lau, Angelo Hallinan, Adam Henderson, Alison Guh, Kimberly Walton, Chantal Willi, Michelle Barger, Bink Galbraith, Martin Malvar

The Planet Word Chandelier is a massive lighting system for the Planet Word Museum. Planet Word is an immersive language experience museum, located at the historic Franklin School in Washington, D.C.

The Planet Word Chandelier is a 12 foot diameter sphere, covered in 4,860 individually controlled light elements. Together, these distributed lights create a spherical screen, able to display interactive content about the world’s languages. controlled by several nearby mounted interactive iPad station. The Planet Word Chandelier envelops the room in a vibrant display of light and sound.

At night, to make room for events and use the full space, the Planet Word Chandelier automatically raises up to the ceiling and transforms into a unique and massive chandelier, able to bathe the room in swirling patterns of twinkling light. In the morning, it lowers back down to become a globe once again.

We designed the structure around a frame of 10 longitudinal aluminum tube-ribs, with welded steel North and South pole structures - all on rotation pivots. A chain hoist hidden near the ceiling raises and lowers the whole structure. Three wire rope cables provide additional support, allowing the structure to expand and compress. The surface topology is based on a 4V geodesic distribution. We designed 3D printed clusters and hubs parametrically in Rhino/Grasshopper. These attach to the main aluminum ribs and support all of the light elements. It is a total of roughly 720 3D printed parts. We created the light housings and diffusers via injection molding. Each light element contains 12 RGBW LEDs with 12-bit control and a peak power of 3 watts per board. Break Out Boards organized in 10 RS-485 universes direct the data traffic to the correct LED boards. The main power is a 220V single phase AC line, stepped down to 24V DC via 20 AC to DC transformers located inside the sphere. Sound data is transferred over ethernet and distributed to five speakers inside the sphere. A computer in a nearby closet handles content, arrangement, and distribution via a custom Touch Designer software application. We built and installed this in the middle of a global pandemic.

Credits:
Design, systems, fabrication, assembly, and installation by Hypersonic
Concept by Local Projects and Planet Word
Museum Displays by Solomon Group
Building Contractor: Whiting Turner
Client Representative: Zubatkin

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Gwylim Johnstone
Katie Treidl
Heather Blind
Anna Torvaldsdotter
Alex Garcia

Hypersonic-Extended Team:
Modeling: Yevgeny Koramblyum
Custom Lighting and PCB Design: Mike Harrison White Wing Logic
Software and Magic: Matt Felsen
Assembly assistance: Jen Storch, David Gould, Casey Bloomquist
Onsite assembly assistance: Charles and Rock

Thanks to Protolabs for their assistance on the injection molded parts.

Hypersonic created the Kinetic Brick Wall displaying moving animations across it’s 20’ wide x 15’ tall surface.

As the wall’s 400 bricks dynamically shift and synchronize with projected video content, the wall comes alive with motion, light, and sound.

Each brick is 12” wide and 10” tall, with 12” of horizontal travel. A stepper motor, timing belt, and linear track allows each brick to move in and out. Using custom controlling software, and custom electronics, we are able to control each brick’s motion. The full wall breaks down into 5 subsections, folding in half for easy transport and setup.

This product is available for rent for your next production. Hypersonic provides fully customized content, with kinetic wall and video projection synchronicity.

Credits
Design, systems, fabrication, assembly, and installation by Hypersonic

Hypersonic
Bill Washabaugh
Gwylim Johnstone
Katie Treidl
Heather Blind
Anna Torvaldsdotter
Pauli King
Alex Garcia

Hypersonic Extended Team
Programming and Electronics: Nathan Lachenmyer
Assembly assistance: Jen Storch, David Gould, Casey Bloomquist, Erika Hodges

In 2019, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presented a 40-year retrospective of the work of Jenny Holzer. For this exhibition, Jenny Holzer not only provided a body of her previous work, but was also commissioned to produce three new works that explored contemporary issues.

There Was A War is one of these three works. It is a four-sided vertical LED sign that swings from a robotic assembly suspended from the gallery’s ceiling. For this work, Holzer sought out information on Syria’s ongoing civil war, its devastating humanitarian consequences, and the international refugee crisis—the documents used by the artist include 131 individual eyewitness accounts collected between 2011 and 2016 by the organizations Human Rights Watch and Save the Children. Interviews with civilian protesters arrested, detained, and tortured by the Assad regime and with defectors from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies offer insight into the unfulfilled promise of Syria’s Arab Spring. Statements from Syrian children and their parents give voice to the many families who have fled their homes over the past eight years and now struggle with daunting challenges.

Hypersonic worked with Jenny Holzer's team to create a kinetic sculpture using one of Jenny Holzer's LED signs that could communicate the terrifying experiences of the Syrian Civil War with Holzer’s text works. The piece descends from a large ceiling cavity at the Guggenheim Bilbao, moving on four independent winch motor axes, which allows the sign to travel around the room. Simultaneously, the LED sign spins on its vertical axis, while displaying text and graphics across the sign.

Credits:
Artist: Jenny Holzer
Logistics: Jenny Holzer Studio Team
Tech Direction: Colin LeFleche
Animation: Paul Kamuf

Hypersonic
Bill Washabaugh
Gwylim Johnstone
Heather Blind
Katie Treidl
Anna Torvaldsdotter

RAM is a three-sided LED stretching over seven meters long. Words scroll along each face of the horizontal LED at varying speeds before flashing, blacking out, and then breaking into a rainbow spectrum of color that casts a mesmerizing glow on the surrounding floor. The different speeds evoke speech patterns that Holzer describes as "the kinetic equivalent to inflection in the voice." The text of RAM is taken from an epic poem cycle by Anna Świrszczyńska (Swir), who joined the Polish resistance during World War II and worked as a nurse during the Warsaw uprising of 1944. Her 1974 work, Building the Barricade (Budowałam Barykade), in a new English translation by poet Piotr Florczyk, addresses the atrocities of war from a first-hand perspective, describing the suffering and heroism Swir observed during the 1944 Nazi siege and destruction of Poland’s capital.

Hypersonic worked with Jenny's team to create this kinetic sculpture which moves back and forth and rotates from side to side, suggesting the motion of military battering rams. Its physical aggressiveness emphasizes the brutality of Swir’s subject, challenging the conventional myths of war traditional to sculpture and poetry.

Credits:
Artist: Jenny Holzer
Logistics: Jenny Holzer Studio Team
Tech Direction: Colin LeFleche
Animation: Paul Kamuf

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Gwylim Johnstone
Heather Blind
Katie Treidl
Anna Torvaldsdotter

Photos: Colin Lefleche
Video: Hypersonic

The Harcourt Wall is an illuminated crystal wall installation for the Baccarat Hotel in New York City. The sculpture's 1,824 signature Baccarat crystal glasses act as pixels, catching the light of programmed animations. From shifting geometries to bubbles to rising smoke patterns and more, each glass is backlit by a custom LED assembly embedded in black stainless steel panels. Welcoming the guests and visitors of the Baccarat Hotel, the Harcourt Wall lights up the first floor lobby throughout the day and evening.

Hypersonic teamed up with Sosolimited to develop, program, and fabricate this 22’ high and 13’ wide installation.

Credits:
By Hypersonic and Sosolimited

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone
Julia Buntaine
Chris Tsimbidis

The Nobel Field is an interactive room honoring each of the Nobel Peace Laureates. Custom made displays showcase the peace prize winners and their important work and history. A sparkling field of 1,000 glowing grass blades guide visitors as they walk through the field. As visitors walk through the Field, sensors track their movement and activate nearby screens with a flourish of light and a music played through the 18 channel speaker system. Punctuated events occur throughout the day, including sparkling light displays connecting peace prize winners by theme, notable speech recordings, and other beautiful visual and sonic events.

Hypersonic worked with Small Design Firm, Adjaye Associates, and the amazing team at the Nobel Peace Center to design the Nobel Field. We designed and built hundreds of display units using proximity sensing, internal LED lighting, high definition displays, high-finish copper structure, and clear injection molded plastic encasement. We also designed and made several thousand LED-lit "grass" blades out of polycarbonate plastic.

A custom design control system under the floor drives all of the 16-bit lighting control and proximity sensing through a central control computer. The control computer also coordinates the 108 screens of high definition video running simultaneously throughout the field.

The Nobel Field was installed by the Hypersonic team in March 2015 in Oslo, Norway.

Credits:
Design , Fabrication, and Installation by Hypersonic
Design and Programming by Small Design Firm
Custom Electronics by John Moeller

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone
Chris Tsimbidis
Julia Buntaine

Special thanks to:
Sue Williams, Angela Yuan, Danielli Aders, Scott Murchison, Elizabeth Whitaker, Kai Pettersen, Gard Sæther, Tommy Modalsli, Mansour El-Khawad, Dave Small.

Music by Eric Gunther

The Global Data Chandelier is a custom light fixture commissioned by the Center for Strategic and International Studies for their new headquarters in Washington, DC. CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit think tank focused on international policy and issues of global significance.

Hypersonic teamed up with Sosolimited, Plebian Design, and Chris Parlato to design, program, and fabricate this one-of-a-kind chandelier. 425 hanging pendants form a map of the world when viewed from below. This map becomes a low-res display for illustrating global data such as GDP growth rate, renewable water resources, and energy consumption. Each data set is paired with a unique lighting animation. In addition, the chandelier can highlight regions of the map that correspond with international developments or events within the building.

We'd like to give special thanks to the team at the CSIS including Dr. John Hamre, Mason Osborne at Jones Lang LaSalle, and Tom Carrado at Hickok Cole for their help in making this chandelier possible.

Credits:
Concept by Sosolimited
Design by Hypersonic, Sosolimited, and Chris Parlato
Detailed Design, Fabrication, and Installation by Hypersonic
Programming by Sosolimited

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone

Plebian Design:
Jeff Lieberman

Special thanks to:
Fritz Washabaugh, Bret VanAalsberg, Heather Blind

Read more about this project:
The Creators Project
Creative Applications Network
Gizmodo
Trend Hunter Art & Design
PSFK

For their renovation of 605 3rd Avenue in New York, Fisher Brothers wanted a digital sculpture to set the lobby of their building apart. Rockwell Group had seen our sculpture Patterned by Nature and asked Hypersonic to design a similar piece for the two large windows of the building.

During the day, the shadows cast by the liquid crystal tiles inside the lobby create animations by filtering incoming sunlight. At night, the animations are visible from the street as the sculpture’s liquid crystal elements interact with the interior lobby lighting, creating a continuously evolving display for passersby.

Since completing the renovation, large tenants from a diverse set of industries have signed long-term leases. Ken Fisher of Fisher Brothers commented that “our leasing successes are a testament to the enduring strength of Midtown and a validation of our efforts to modernize the property through the lobby renovation.”

Credits:
Concept, Design, Assembly, Installation by Hypersonic
Electronics by Patten Studio
Architecture by Rockwell Group
Animation by The Lab at Rockwell Group

LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy has had a dream for New York City for several years: to make New York’s subways sound better. When Murphy and the production team needed a way to create magic and make this idea come to life, they called Hypersonic.

Hypersonic teamed up with James Murphy, Heineken, and Wieden & Kennedy to create the Subway Symphony campaign. The simple idea is to replace the abrasive ‘beep’ played when one swipes their Metrocard with a preprogrammed musical tone as part of a harmonic sequence. The combination of multiple turnstiles being used as people travel into the subway station would create a symphony of beautiful sounds, with each subway station having its own unique auditory theme.

To bring this to idea to life, Hypersonic designed realistic subway turnstiles that could show the public what this proposed change in the subways would look, feel, and sound like. We worked with the team to design new turnstile tones and arrange how they would play out across multiple turnstiles as commuters pass through. We took the project a step further by integrating a demo-mode, where the turnstiles robotically play tones, light up, and move according to actual MTA turnstile-use data. Demo-mode works as if invisible people are using the subway turnstiles in real-time, allowing us to understand what this system might look and sounds like in a busy subway environment.

Hypersonic took the Subway Symphony project to several events around New York City. The turnstiles were demoed for the public in front of City Hall, at Milk Studios for media demos, and at Soho House New York -where former NY governor David Paterson signed on as a big supporter.

Credits:
Design, Robotics, Fabrication and Installation by Hypersonic
Custom Electronics by John Moeller

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone
Chris Tsimbidis

Special thanks to:
Jeff Lieberman for system architecture consulting, Dan Paluska for spiritual guidance, Jeannette Subero for production assistance, and Al Attara for moving and storage consulting.

The Zebrafish Interactive Donor Wall was created for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in collaboration with Small Design Firm. A school of 477 3D-printed fish swim across this hospital donation wall creating vibrant patterns as each fish glows with light. All of the fish have a unique shape and are embossed with the name of a generous donor to the Cancer Institute. Each fish is fitted with a custom designed circuit board hidden inside, with capacitive touch-sensing and an LED array. When a visitor waves touches a fish, the donor’s special message is displayed on a nearby screen.

Credits:
Engineering Design, Electronics Fabrication, and Installation by Hypersonic
Concept Design and Animations by Small Design Firm Custom Electronics by Patten Studio

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl
Gwylim Johnstone

Special thanks to:
The Small Design Team, Dan Paluska, Laura Wickesberg.

Amorphic Robot Works was commissioned by the French car maker Citroen to create a kinetic sculpture as a center piece for the atrium of Citroen's new main showroom at 42 Champs Elysées, Paris, France.

Bill joined the team in May of 2006 as the lead designer/engineer on the project. Bill led a team of engineers, artists, and fabricators to design and build Totemobile, a robotic sculpture that transforms from a 1965 Citroen DS automobile into 60 foot tall moving sculpture.

The Totemobile has shown at Bethune, France in 2010 and Den Hagg, the Netherlands in 2011 and Shanghai, China in 2012.

Hypersonic teamed up with Zigelbaum + Coelho to create an interactive display for the Cartier flagship store front windows on 5th Avenue in New York City for the holiday season 2012. Jewelry boxes magically open when visitors gaze upon them, revealing the hidden gems within. The jewelry boxes are each robotically actuated, using a laser tracking system to identify visitors and activate the robotic motors hidden beneath the tables.

Read more about this project:
BWD
The Creators Project

GE commissioned Hypersonic and RockPaperRobot to create the Barista Bot, an interactive robotic experience for SXSW 2013. We created customized 3D- printing robots that utilize computer vision systems and robotics to capture a customers image and print their likeness on top of their latte.

Credits:
Concept, Design, and Production by Hypersonic and RockPaperRobot
Software by Jamie Zigelbaum

Hypersonic:
Bill Washabaugh
Katie Treidl

Special thanks to:
Kyle MacDonald for us of his facial recognition algorithm, Fritz Washabaugh for coffee consulting