Everyone assumes the balls light up. Not one of them does.
Diodic Daydream in Portland is an 800-square-foot pool of 150,000 translucent balls. The color comes from 40,000 programmable LEDs working underneath and around them, rolling waves of color through the whole pool while you wade in up to your waist. The balls do what balls do. They catch it.
Built in Portland, by hand and by machine
Matchless Builds made it. A Portland fabrication studio, started in 2018 by a small crew who wanted to do something different, now a team of sixteen on NW Yeon Avenue who build for Nike, Columbia, The North Face, and us. Their method is half wood shop, half robot: hand sculpting and metalwork next to CNC routing, 3D printing and resin casting. The result has the precision of engineering and the texture of something human hands made.
San Antonio’s Diodic Daydream is a different build by a different studio, POLIS Interactive. Same idea, two answers. Neither one is a copy.
Most people just call it the ball pit. Both are correct.
How to use it
Get in. Properly in. Sit down and let it close over your shoulders. The LEDs cycle on their own schedule, so give it a few minutes and the room will change color on you. Watch the people standing on the edge who think they are too old for this. They last about ninety seconds.
The film above was shot by our crew on the Portland floor. It is the closest a screen gets. Not very close.
