Young people experience art+tech and create "Pixel Mosaic".

When digital artist and "maker" Mic Black left the solitude of his garage workshop, he inspired a fledgling Sunshine Coast community to join an ambitious project that would challenge the language tools we use to describe ourselves.

(Sun Coast Daily) With "an army of skilled professionals, volunteers and supporters", Mic embarked on his most collaborative digital art project yet, Pixel Mosaic.

This interactive, 4.5m x 2.2m wall of custom-made LED circuit boards forms a "digital mosaic" of coloured lights. The lights were designed by school-aged students, who were each given a 12cm electronic tile with which to represent themselves.

The youngsters were asked the question: "If you were to describe yourself in a sequence of colours, which colours would you choose?"

They used iPads to mix a 20 second colour animation and write a story about why they chose the colours that they did, then Mic and his team loaded these onto one of the 468 wall tiles.

Some of the youngsters' stories would "make you speechless with their sincerity", Mic said. "Up close it's like a window into one child's mind but at a distance you can see patterns emerging from the colour and story data that are truly insightful and valuable."

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Photo: Digital artist and maker Mic Black with his digital mosaic. Photo: Mic Black