December 2, 2025
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News 10 years of Impulse
Impulsion -Adelaide, Australie - 2022 © Xplorer Studio
Impulse: 10 Years of Light, Movement, and Shared Music
Ten years after its creation, Impulse, the landmark installation by Lateral Office and CS Design, continues to travel the world and captivate growing audiences. With an original musical composition by Mitchell Akiyama, this participatory artwork transforms each public space into a vast urban instrument where light, movement, and sound blend to create an ephemeral work.
An artwork shaped by music, design, and collective imagination
Created from a brief that placed sound and light at the heart of the artistic process, Impulse draws inspiration from two major references:
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the iconic cover of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, with its vibrating waveforms;
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and the minimalist, serial music of Steve Reich, built on repetition, variation, and pulsation.
These influences inform an installation that explores how architecture can visualize sound and transform human movement into a driving force for creation.
An interactive experience where everyone becomes a musician
Impulse is composed of a series of large illuminated and acoustic seesaws in two different lengths.
Their behavior is simple:
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At rest, they remain horizontal and emit a soft, glowing halo.
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In motion, they tilt, intensify their light, and trigger a unique sound sequence.
Each seesaw becomes a unit of sound and light. Together, they form a dynamic wave that shifts with the public’s interactions. The artwork embodies the principles of repetition, variation, and serialism, creating a sensory landscape in constant evolution.
Gallery
Impulsion – Dallas, USA – 2019 © Scogin Mayo
Impulsion – Houston, USA – 2019 © Avenida Houston
Impulsion – Seattle, USA – 2021 © Jenna Lynn Photography
Impulsion -Adelaide, Australie – 2022 © Xplorer Studio
Impulsion, Barcelone, 2025 © Xavi Torrent
Impulsion – Lugano, Suisse – 2016 © LAC Foto Studio Pagi
10 years, 67 presentations, 55 cities, 12 countries: an exceptional international journey
Since its launch, Impulse has been presented:
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67 times,
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in 55 cities,
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across 12 countries.
Over the years, several standout presentations have confirmed the international success of Impulse—a success that shows no signs of slowing down and, in fact, continues to grow. Among these highlights are its presentation in London, where the installation shone during the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival in 2024, as well as its deployment in Bilbao, in front of the iconic Guggenheim Museum, creating a striking dialogue with the building’s architecture. In Niagara Falls, public enthusiasm was so strong that it even led to the purchase of several seesaws, a tangible sign of the attachment the artwork inspires.
These examples illustrate just how timeless the concept is, driven by a simple, universal, and deeply human experience.
A decade of collective magic
Ten years later, Impulse remains one of the most popular interactive installations in our catalogue. It brings people together, surprises them, and invites everyone to take part in creating a living, ever-changing artwork.
By transforming public space into an instrument and the public into performers, Impulse reminds us that the city can become a shared playground—where light and sound act as catalysts for connection and wonder.
