Watch fifty disco balls create a room full of beautiful static mapped out with 3D modeling

In large enough numbers, disco balls become uncanny. Light Leaks, created by Kyle McDonald and Jonas Jongejan for Denmark’s Click Festival, starts with fifty reflective balls placed in the center of the room. From there, three projectors are pointed at the balls, creating varied light patterns. The light is then captured by a 3D scanner, creating a catalog of about 40 images for a half-dozen different patterns and letting McDonald and Jongejan reconstruct where each reflective dot falls.

By pairing that data with a 3D model of a room, they can create precise formations that fill a room, McDonald says, in a way simple projectors couldn’t. The result is something like standing inside a field of static or a hailstorm. Creative Applications has a further breakdown of the process, and Wired talks to McDonald about the process of creating it and how other artists can download the tools and build on his work.