Polis Interactive
Polis is an Austin based, tech forward art installation group composed of Daniel Goodwin and Broose Wilcoxon. With backgrounds in different fields of engineering, technology, and art, we strive to make the usually esoteric and arcane available to the general public. We want to use our diverse skill sets to create unique, innovative, and immersive experiences for the communities we live in.
We got our start in the art space by applying to the 2018 Creek Show on a whim and somehow getting in. As fresh UT graduates eager to stand alongside established architects, fabricators, and designers, we went all out and promptly had it handed to us. Now intuitively understanding the Dunning-Kruger effect, we went through a montage of learnings and finished the piece, Ambedo ßeta, with hours to spare before the show opening. To our disbelief and at the risk of understanding Stockholm Syndrome, it was better than we had hoped or imagined. Having completed the Herculean task and seeing people's overwhelmingly positive response to the piece, Creek Show gave us an indelible high that we've been chasing ever since.
Years later, Polis has gone on to create works of public art, installations in private galleries, and... a good amount of architectural lighting, for some reason. We’ve continued to level up our skillsets as we take on new projects, challenging ourselves to solve complex problems while creating a surplus of joy for the world. Wherever the journey takes us, we’ll approach the path with meticulous care and a dash of thyme for good measure.
Creek Show 2024
Waller Creek High, A School for Extraordinary Fish was conceived as an installation for the Waterloo Greenway 10th Anniversary Creek Show. Creek Show is a favorite of the Polis team; an Austin local, annual light show that forces posh Austinites into the dirty, dirty creeks of downtown in an effort to raise funds for their restoration. The following flavor text was written on our artist sign:
As part of Creek Show’s 10th anniversary, the Waller CreekHigh Class of 2024 students have prepared this demonstration,showcasing their linguistic mastery of the language of light. Thestudent council has each prepared a selection of poetry they’vefound most pleasing to the human optic nerves, and on command,they will lead the school through its recitation. With HeadmasterCreek Monster at the helm, come witness the efforts of thesematriculating fish and see the strides they’ve made towardbecoming extraordinary members of our shared community.
Waller Creek High, A School for Extraordinary Fish, plays on the lore started by Ambedo ßeta in Creek Show 2018, where Creek Monster scientists found a way to convert human speech to the language of light. The installation is composed of blow molded fish sculptures made of recycled materials that swoop over the creek to mimic the form of a school.
We wanted to accomplish two goals with the piece: create something of spectacle and quality despite the given budget; and avoid the trash we created with Ambedo ßeta. Our solution to both was to compose the installation out of individual luminaries that could be sold of individually as lamps.
Fish Lamps
Before Creek Show started, we had vague plans for the types of lamps we'd sell, the software we'd write, the electronics we'd design, and the housings we'd build to tie it all together. Once the show was underway, our initial adoption drive exceeded expectations, and we managed to rehouse over 60% of the 2024 Waller Creek High graduating class! We were thrilled to have hit our goal, what with the "not losing money on the installation" and "having enough left over to fulfill the orders we got." But we weren't unconcerned that we now had to figure out how to fulfill all these orders, Polis' first foray into product design.
Over the 2025 winter holiday, we hunkered down, designing and redesigning lamp bases and stands, reworking PCB prototypes because MOSFETs are complicated, and burning out our retinas trying to dial in fades. We finally landed on a design we were proud of and figured out how to make it manufacturable, at least on a small scale. Emerging from our mania in late January, we were victorious; with hundreds of lamps to hand out, we turned our shop into a faux adoption agency, and invited our supporters to one more bout of fun before taking home their new lamps.
At this point, we were shocked to find out that people actually liked the lamps—turns out, if you put customers first in your design process, they connect more with it. We've since refined our designs to make them more manufacturable, while retaining quality that made them special in the first place. This let us scale up our production and make the fish lamps regularly available. Consider adopting one of our GMO-free, urban-grown fish today!