First Night Boston 2014

Hearthbeat is an interactive sonic fireplace. Six organ pipes produce hundreds of tiny jets of flame that dance in concert with sound. Participants can sing, sweep their hand over a synthesizer, or drum out rhythms at a performance podium, and a wall of fire will change shape based on the frequency content of their music.


Roughly 12 feet wide and 5 feet tall, Hearthbeat is a steel sculpture based on the principles of the Rubens' Tube, a classic physics demonstration that converts sound pressure to air pressure and visualizes the result with fire.