living
tribute
The Living Tribute is a monument commissioned by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) to honour fallen and injured workers on April 28th 2008, the national Day of Mourning. It was first unveiled in Queen's Park, Toronto and is now permanently installed in the lobby of the WSIB headquarters on Front Street.
The installation consists of a tall metal monolith with a vertical plasma display. The monument slants slightly towards the viewer to evoke dangers in the workplace. A touchscreen allows visitors to walk up to the monument and light a virtual flame by pressing their finger against the glass in an act of symbolic remembrance. The flame is then released and joins hundreds of others flowing on the screen. Visitors from around the province can also light a flame by visiting a website which mirrors the content of the monument. Both are synchronized, which means that a flame light on the web also appears on the sculpture, and vice-versa.
The Living Tribute was designed for Draft FCB and Pixel Farmers by Tom Kuo, Michael Lam, David Girolami, Steve DiLorenzo and myself. My contribution was to develop custom software to generate the flames that are on the sculpture and on the web, as well as some electronics for proximity detection.