Lux Automata — 635,040-LED Living Voxel Sculpture & Embodied AI

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Physical Sculpture Architecture

Permanent Installation

Lux Automata suspended light sculpture in King's Cross

Suspended in the two-storey entrance foyer of Google DeepMind's global headquarters in King's Cross, London, Lux Automata is a permanent architectural media sculpture that questions whether an artificial system can possess an autonomous creative impulse.

Created in close collaboration between artist/architect Jason Bruges Studio and Google DeepMind, the sculpture comprises 2,940 suspended cast-acrylic cubes arranged in a three-dimensional volumetric matrix. Each cube houses dual-sided matte-black PCBs with custom addressable LED nodes, delivering a total volumetric resolution of 635,040 individually controllable light voxels.

Total Physical Voxels	2,940 suspended acrylic crystalline cubes
LED Emitter Nodes	635,040 addressable high-CRI LED emitters
Spatial Dimensions	14m × 4m × 3.5m volumetric envelope
Sensory Telemetry	Overhead wide-angle camera matrix & ambient motion flow
Control Architecture	Custom gigabit DMX/Art-Net backplane running continuous 60fps CAs

Jason Bruges Studio Project Page ↗

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Four Generative & Artificial-Life Substrates

Algorithm Families

Dylan Banarse led the research and software architecture for Lux Automata's behavioral substrate, conceiving four interconnected families of procedural and artificial-life algorithms that breathe dynamic life into the volumetric matrix:

1. 3D Rule-Based Cellular Automata

Discrete and continuous 3D cellular automata running in volumetric space. Includes 3D gliders, crystalline morphogenesis, and emergent reaction-diffusion patterns evolving across 2,940 cubes.

2. Neural & Developmental CAs

"Soft CAs" and neural cellular automata trained to grow, self-repair, and preserve target morphological volumes when disturbed by pedestrian movement underneath.

3. Reinforcement Learning Agents

Autonomous virtual entities navigating inside the light lattice, responding to simulated physics, temperature fields, and human presence gathered from foyer cameras.

4. Artificial-Life Ecosystems

Multi-species digital populations with simulated metabolisms, flocking boids, reproduction, and predator-prey dynamics coexisting across the spatial volume.

LIVE 3D VOXEL MATRIX // INTERACTIVE EMULATION VOXELS: 2,940 · 60 FPS

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The Embodied AI Curator ("Agatha")

Homeostatic Drives

Rather than replaying static looped animations, Lux Automata is continuously curated by a synthetic behavioral mind named "Agatha". Agatha acts as an embodied intelligence whose internal states shift dynamically according to homeostatic drives:

Curiosity Drive: Seeks out novelty by mutating cellular automata rule tables when patterns become repetitive or static.
Boredom & Fatigue: If a visual state persists too long without environmental interaction, Agatha initiates phase transitions toward alternative algorithmic families.
Social Receptivity: Downward-facing camera sensors track crowd velocity, density, and dwell times in the foyer. Crowds trigger ripple cascades, while quiet evenings evoke meditative, bioluminescent deep-sea pulses.

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