Nyctous Tunnel Book Plan

I started my final project ideation by exploring potential aesthetics. I first looked at previous art that I have made, and I found common themes of vibrant colors and atmospheric scenes. One such piece that exemplifies these qualities, and was inspired by a mystical take on the word “petrichor”, is shown below.

A drawing of a forest after rain, with colorful pathways revealed in the puddle reflections.

I also took some time perusing images online, and came across a series of urban images labeled as being taken during “blue hour”. I spent a lot of time trying to track down the original source of several of the images, but ultimately decided that the original creators likely removed them. I will describe their vibe with a short poem instead:

Sodden streets amid the night, reflecting simple streetlight
While distant dormant buildings cloak themselves in haze
Solitary when viewed in situ, companioned to darkened blue
The submerged memory dredged beneath half liminal daze

The aesthetic of these photos emphasize dreamy late nights, urban environments, and ambient sounds, which is on the right track for what I want to go for. However, the photos I found are overwhelmingly blue in a way that evokes a somber-ness I am less captivated by.

In the happenstance of exploration, I then mentioned these ideas to my dad and he immediately pulled up about a dozen photographs he had taken of colorful atmospheric late-night street scenes, perfectly capturing the intersection of these ideas. I have selected a few of his photographs below to encapsulate the aesthetic I will pursue with this project.

Nighttime urban photos emphasizing atmosphere

Among these, the first photo to this post feels the most colorful, though the presence of color seems impactful in even small quantities, as with the glare of stop lights, the soft yellow of office building windows, or the underlit green of trees shown here. Lighting is an unmistakable element to this aesthetic, though it accentuates other features within a scene as much as it is a feature itself. I also like the element of a star filled dark backdrop, most prominent in the last photo.

It was some time later that I came across the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows entry for the invented word nyctous, defined as follows:

“adj. feeling quietly overjoyed to be the only one awake in the middle of the night—sitting alone with a laptop and a cup of tea or strolling down the center line of an abandoned street—taking in the world like an empty theater between productions, stripped down to a simple black box, open to be whatever you want it to be.” [1]

I love this definition and feel it fits this aesthetic well, so I have adopted it as the relevant descriptor for my project.  I especially resonate with the presence of joy and a metaphorical empty stage as an instigation for imagination or inspiration within this definition.

I then explored what physical artifact I could create based on this aesthetic. Given that my source material stemmed from realistic photographs, a diorama was the first option that came to mind. However, simply creating a scale recreation of a nighttime scene felt too on-the-nose and lacking in atmosphere. Seeking some alternatives, I first considered a 3D zoetrope, which integrates motion by flashing a strobe light on a spinning arrangement of slightly shifted models. While I enjoy the final concept of a 3D zoetrope, all of the examples I found online felt more like an animation aesthetic than an atmospheric scene. Another alternative I found that felt more similar to a diorama was a tunnel book. Here as an example of a tunnel book from 1740, where separate illustrated panels create the illusion of a 3D scene.

1740 tunnel book from the Smithsonian [2]

Creating a 3D scene with discrete layers enables different aesthetics than those constrained to 3D objects, such as the illustrated aesthetic here. Looking to fit my Nyctous aesthetic and use more engineering materials, I settled on my final project idea, where I will use a laser cutter to raster etch silhouettes into acrylic panels. I can then add dynamic LED lights between the layers like present in a nighttime scene and situate a black sheet with holes at the very back to act as stars.

Final project concept sketch

This setup will also allow me to vary the silhouettes on each panel from more realistic to more abstract as needed to achieve the nyctous atmosphere I am going for. There are not really abstract elements in the photos that I am referencing, but the vibe of nighttime fog, blurry camera focus, and a dreamy mindset play into my desire to incorporate abstract elements into the piece. Portraying all shapes in the piece as silhouettes is more a constraint with the medium of laser cut acrylic (I’ll experiment with variations in cut intensity to test this constraint), but I think solid silhouette outlines will play into the aesthetic in a similar way to the abstract shapes.

For the wiring of the LEDs, I plan to run it behind the frosted sections of the panels and underneath to a control board behind the backsheet. The glow of the LEDs is integral to the scene, but I hope to hide the wiring as much as possible to maintain the integrity of the silhouetted scene. I will use a breadboard connected to an arduino microcontroller to control the lights, making use of hardware that I already have and components without the need for solder to speed up this process in my limited time. I have coded LEDs in Arduino before, so I don’t anticipate the custom code for the dynamic lights to be a significant challenge, but the dynamic LED timings should be given significant refinement to look good together.

With the next four weeks on this project, I plan to divide my work as follows:

Week 1  – Test Plexiglass Laser Cutting and Shapes
Week 2 – Design and Fabricate Shapes
Week 3 – Wire and Program Lighting
Week 4 – Make an Enclosure and Finishing Touches

I will first complete a test cut of the acrylic panels to test their overall appearance, capability for detail, most effective arrangement, and other details of the process and look. Following the test cut, I will design and fabricate the final shapes for my acrylic layers. Hopefully this process will go smoothly the second time around with any complications caught by the test week. As the dynamic lights are a key part of my project, I will then dedicate a week to arranging LEDs, wiring the circuitry, programming the control, and refining the timings for an optimal rendering of the aesthetic. I have left one week at the end to make an enclosure or any other finishing touches necessary to bring the project together. This leeway is important to my schedule for any unforeseen circumstances that come up, as well as just providing time to make my result feel polished and finalized.

[editor’s note: This post is four weeks late and the provided timeline reflects original intentions]

References:
[1] “Nyctous – The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.” Accessed: Mar. 29, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/word/nyctous
[2] S. I. Libraries, Tunnel Book, Martin Engelbrecht. 2010. Accessed: Mar. 29, 2025. [Photo]. Available: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonianlibraries/4554834794/
[2] S. I. Libraries, Tunnel Book, Martin Engelbrecht. 2010. Accessed: Mar. 29, 2025. [Photo]. Available: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonianlibraries/4554202783/
[2] M. Engelbrecht, J. Wachsmuth, and D. Nessenthaler, Garden scene with dancers, to be used as the set for a miniature theater. Augsburg: Martin Engelbrecht, 1740.