Sky Ear, Usman Haque

Sky Ear is a collection of hundreds of helium filled balloons with mobile phone technology, electromagnetic sensors and colored lights that are activated by the sensors. by calling the phones attached to the balloons the electromagnetic fields created activate the lights creating interactive performances. The Balloons diffuses the light giving the lights a glowing aesthetic. A new space ‘Hertzian Space’ as Haque calls it becomes percievable.

Sky Ear September 15, 2004 at Greenwich Park.

Usman Haque Sky Ear Project

“As people using phones at ground-level call into the cloud (flying up to 100m above them) they are able to listen to distant natural electromagnetic sounds of the sky (including whistlers and spherics). Their mobile phone calls change the local hertzian topography; these disturbances in the electromagnetic fields inside the cloud alter the glow patterns of that part of the balloon cloud. Feedback within the sensor network creates ripples of light reminiscent of rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning.”

1 comment May 6th, 2005

Not so White Walls

Quite a bit of this going on at the moment. Hypersurface or interactive screen like surfaces. Check out the Dario Buzzini’s website at interaction-ivrea for his personal interest in taking these ideas of interactive surfaces on.

The surface of the wallpaper can display text and images according to the input received from a computer.The wallpaper works like a low resolution and low refresh rate display, giving you the possibility to change patterns and contents on your walls. For example you can read your emails or SMS, but also view the images taken with your mobile phone camera. The function is that of decorating our home environments in a new and constantly changing way. In productive terms, it is interesting to note that this project started like a thesis project and then developed in a real commercial product. At the exhibition will be shown a new re-engineered version.

Add comment May 6th, 2005