Thread is an interactive light sculpture by Sam Brocchini, built with a group of artists, engineers, and friends. A steel spine is drawn between two pedestals, three tubes spiral around it, and twelve strings of LEDs run their length into a single twisted form.
Each pedestal has buttons. Press one and a comet runs out along your strand toward the other side. When a player at the far end answers, the two meet in the middle and the strand locks into a connected state. When every strand is connected, the whole thread lights up.
The render above is built from the fabrication model of the steel: the two pedestals, the central spine pipe, and three tubes that spiral around it. Twelve diffused LED ropes run along them, three on each tube and three on the spine, 7,200 LEDs in all at their real positions. Each rope glows through a 270° arc with the strip's own shadow at its back, and ropes hide behind the steel and behind each other as the piece turns, so what you see is close to what the eye sees from that side of the piece. Live connects the page to the sculpture's own controller and shows exactly what it sends; the pedestal buttons then play the game from here.
It runs on voxeled, an open volumetric LED show-control system: the LEDs, their emission normals and the Art-Net wiring are one small layout file (thread.yaml), the patterns are functions of position, and the same page can show any piece described that way.
- lead artist Sam Brocchini
- built at The Box Shop, San Francisco
- shown at Burning Man 2025
- 7,200 addressable LEDs
- 12 strings, 600 LEDs each
- 3 spiral tubes around a 3" spine
- 2 interactive pedestals
- 48 Art-Net universes
- steel, wood, electronics, LEDs, hardware
- runs on voxeled
- model + bridge github.com/dnewcome/thread-3d