Work / The Alien Tree · IAC Paris

Case study · Interactive sculpture

A treewith senses.

Four metres of otherworldly sculpture for the world's biggest space congress — a tree that sensed you coming, sang when you touched it, and hummed through the seats grown out of its roots.

Client
Buble Studios
Event
International Astronautical Congress, Paris
Produced with
Universal Live
Our role
Bespoke sculpture, sensors, sound & addressable LED
The four-metre Alien Tree on the Buble Studios stand — a twisting purple trunk edged in glowing LED lines, a pale swaying canopy overhead, and pink pebble seats around its roots.
The Alien Tree — addressable LED tracing the trunk, seating grown into the roots.

The brief

Buble Studios wanted to land IAC delegates on an alien exoplanet — a portal to another dimension, and a living tree growing in the strange world on the other side. The tree was the world's anchor: something people would cross the hall for, sit under with a coffee, and not quite believe. It had to run all day, every day, for five days. (The portal itself has its own story — the Infinity Cave.)

4 mTall, canopy to roots
8Musical touch tendrils
8LiDAR light-balls
5Days, non-stop

A sculpture with senses

A twisting trunk traced in addressable LED, a pale canopy that gently swayed overhead, and seating grown straight out of the roots. The light breathed, shifted and bloomed — but the tree's real trick was that it noticed you.

Sixteen tendrils ran from the treetop to the floor. Eight musical tendrils fanned out from the canopy like the strings of an instrument — step inside the fan and touch one, and it played, each with its own controllable tone, so delegates stood there composing chords with a tree. Another eight hung straight down, tipped with glowing light-balls — each housing its own LED, a tiny speaker and a LiDAR sensor — walk up to one and it sensed you, sang, and shied away upwards like something alive.

Sit on the roots and the tree got you too: subwoofers under the seats let you feel its hum, hidden speakers carried a calming score, and built-in humidifiers breathed scent into the air. Light, sound, bass, motion and smell — a sculpture running on senses, holding people of every age under it for the whole five days.

Two visitors standing inside the fan of ribbed white musical tendrils running from the canopy to the floor, one reaching up to play them, the glowing purple trunk behind.
The musical tendrils — fanned from canopy to floor; touch to play
A young girl reaching up to touch one of the tree's hanging light-ball tendrils, lit softly beneath the canopy.
The LiDAR light-balls — sense you, sing, and lift away

How it was made

  • 01

    Bespoke fabrication

    A one-off — sculpted, built and finished from scratch to look like nothing else in the hall, and to pack down, travel and rebuild on the stand.

  • 02

    Addressable LED, mapped

    Every pixel placed and mapped by hand, so colour and motion flow through the trunk, branches and tendrils as one continuous, controllable surface.

  • 03

    Sensors, sound & touch

    LiDAR in every light-ball, touch sensing in every musical tendril, speakers hidden through the canopy and subwoofers under the seats — the tree didn't play a loop, it responded to people.

  • 04

    Electronics in-house

    The controllers, wiring and effects were all ours — designed and programmed in-house, so the tree on the stand matched the tree in the concept, exactly.

Addressable LED LiDAR Touch sensing Spatial sound Bespoke fabrication In-house electronics

On the stand

The full Buble Studios stand at IAC Paris — the glowing alien tree rising over white organic seating and a colourful floor, the pink buble sign overhead.
FIG. 01The world from the aisle — the tree anchoring the stand
Delegates sitting and talking on the seating beneath the alien tree's glowing canopy, tendrils hanging around them.
FIG. 02Under the canopy — bass in the seats, scent in the air
Close-up of the hanging light-ball tendrils — faceted glowing spheres on white cords against the dark trunk.
FIG. 03Light-balls — LED, speaker and LiDAR in every sphere

Credits

Client
Buble Studios
Produced with
Universal Live
Event
International Astronautical Congress, Paris
Sculpture, sensors, sound, LED & electronics
HALF GREY BEAR
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