The starting idea here is a lovely one: rebuilding the famous five-note communication melody from Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a light show on modular Nanoleaf wall panels. Those five tones are so ingrained in film history that turning them into flashing tiles feels like a natural match for this hobby.
The setup uses Nanoleaf Light Panels driven through a DMX adapter, with the panels themselves controlled by DMX signals. The tiles sit on the wall in a branching hexagonal layout, and groups of them flash in time with both the pitch and the tempo of the music. A synthesizer track plays variations, arpeggios and octave changes on the melody, and the lit sections respond in solid colors: blue, amber, red, purple and yellow.
Two details stand out to me. One arrangement shows six glowing panels forming a hexagonal ring around a dark central opening, which reads as a strong visual echo of the film's imagery. Beyond this show, the maker has also launched an app so people can play custom light shows at home without hours of programming, and it supports Aurora Triangles, Canvas squares, Hexagons and Shapes panels. That breadth seems like a genuinely useful move for anyone with a mixed panel collection.
One thing remains open: the dark footage keeps the panel materials, internal electronics, wiring and control boards out of view, so the hardware side is still a mystery. Also worth noting is that Nanoleaf is beta testing DMX compatibility, which the maker reports working well so far, with a full launch expected this summer.
Project by LightLink. Watch it on their YouTube channel: