SAM TOPLEY

The TEDxLeicester Interactive Sign was a co-created piece made by many people throughout Leicestershire. It was a result of a large-scale community project, where ideas in e-textiles (electronic textiles), experimental music making, physical computing and more, were explored in workshop settings. In the many workshops, participants each made musical pompoms which made sound when touched. Around 200 individual music-making pompoms were made in total, which all came together to form the TEDx logo. When the pompoms on the sign were touched and tickled - they made music! 

The project was commissioned by TEDxLeicester in Summer 2019 and involved a diverse range of participants throughout Leicestershire, from Maplewell Hall School, Buswells Lodge Primary School, Keyham Lodge School, Leicester Coffee House and the University of Leicester. 

The sign has been exhibited on stage at the TEDxLeicester 'Fast Forward' conference at The Y Theatre (September 2019), at the TEDWomen 'Bold and Brilliant' event at Gateway Sixth Form College (December 2019) and was pictured in the Leicester Mercury newspaper (December 2019).

Read more about this project in Sam's PhD thesis.