SKY EAR one more time
| By aki @ 08:33 | [ :) ] |
Email from Usman Haque in London
Aki
----
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Sky Ear is back on track and set to fly again!
Last May we were unfortunately set back by English bad weather but we
had a very successful full featured flight in July and we'll be
flying again in London in three weeks. (images from Fribourg here:
http://haque.co.uk/skyear/swiss )
Details:
September 15, 2004 @ 19.00 local time
National Maritime Museum/Greenwich Park, London.
Sky Ear is a colourful glowing cloud of a thousand helium balloons
filled with mobile phones and electromagnetic sensors.
http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear
I hope you will be able to join us, and particularly hope that those
who made a wasted journey last May will be able to return to
participate in this flight. This time round, we have rain dates for
each of the following days and we will also have a recorded message
giving you up-to-the-moment info on the status of the project: 07734
588 955. We hope to have a webcast for those who are far away.
Usman
[p.s. I may send one more reminder a week before lift-off; I may also
write to you in the future about other events; if you'd prefer me not
to please let me know]
...............................
haque: design + research
07796 507 162
http://www.haque.co.uk
...............................
Project summary:
The story begins in my studio in Japan several years ago. I was
wandering around trying to find good reception on my radio. I
realised that this was similar to the way I wandered around trying to
find good signal on my mobile phone. I started to imagine the
undulating qualities of an invisible topography that surrounded me:
the varying electromagnetic fields (EMF) that are present everywhere
and that guided me to certain parts of the room in much the same way
that traditional architectural elements do.
In Sky Ear, I wanted to give form to this space, to make visible the
invisible with a 25m diameter cloud of sensors responding to EMF in
the atmosphere. The cloud consists of 1000 extra-large helium
balloons that each contain 6 ultra-bright LEDs (which mix to make
millions of colours). The balloons can communicate with each other
via infra-red; this allows them to send signals to create larger
patterns across the entire Sky Ear cloud.
As visitors call into the different mobile phones in the cloud, they
listen to the distant electromagnetic sounds of the sky (called
whistlers and spherics, which are the audible equivalent of the
Aurora Borealis). Their mobile phone calls change the local
electromagnetic topography and cause disturbances in the EMF inside
the cloud that alters the glow intensity and colour of that part of
the balloon cloud. Feedback within the sensor network creates ripples
of light reminiscent of rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning.
The cloud shows both how a natural invisible electromagnetism
pervades our environment and also how our mobile phone calls and text
messages delicately affect the new and existing electromagnetic
fields. As an art project, Sky Ear encourages people to become
creative participants in an electromagnetic performance; as an
architecture project, Sky Ear makes visible our daily interactions
with the invisible topographies of electromagnetic space.
Sky Ear will be open to the public at 19.00 on September 15, 2004 at
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Park, London and is
financially assisted by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art,
Science and Technology. More information about the project is
available here: http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear/
Aki
----
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Sky Ear is back on track and set to fly again!
Last May we were unfortunately set back by English bad weather but we
had a very successful full featured flight in July and we'll be
flying again in London in three weeks. (images from Fribourg here:
http://haque.co.uk/skyear/swiss )
Details:
September 15, 2004 @ 19.00 local time
National Maritime Museum/Greenwich Park, London.
Sky Ear is a colourful glowing cloud of a thousand helium balloons
filled with mobile phones and electromagnetic sensors.
http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear
I hope you will be able to join us, and particularly hope that those
who made a wasted journey last May will be able to return to
participate in this flight. This time round, we have rain dates for
each of the following days and we will also have a recorded message
giving you up-to-the-moment info on the status of the project: 07734
588 955. We hope to have a webcast for those who are far away.
Usman
[p.s. I may send one more reminder a week before lift-off; I may also
write to you in the future about other events; if you'd prefer me not
to please let me know]
...............................
haque: design + research
07796 507 162
http://www.haque.co.uk
...............................
Project summary:
The story begins in my studio in Japan several years ago. I was
wandering around trying to find good reception on my radio. I
realised that this was similar to the way I wandered around trying to
find good signal on my mobile phone. I started to imagine the
undulating qualities of an invisible topography that surrounded me:
the varying electromagnetic fields (EMF) that are present everywhere
and that guided me to certain parts of the room in much the same way
that traditional architectural elements do.
In Sky Ear, I wanted to give form to this space, to make visible the
invisible with a 25m diameter cloud of sensors responding to EMF in
the atmosphere. The cloud consists of 1000 extra-large helium
balloons that each contain 6 ultra-bright LEDs (which mix to make
millions of colours). The balloons can communicate with each other
via infra-red; this allows them to send signals to create larger
patterns across the entire Sky Ear cloud.
As visitors call into the different mobile phones in the cloud, they
listen to the distant electromagnetic sounds of the sky (called
whistlers and spherics, which are the audible equivalent of the
Aurora Borealis). Their mobile phone calls change the local
electromagnetic topography and cause disturbances in the EMF inside
the cloud that alters the glow intensity and colour of that part of
the balloon cloud. Feedback within the sensor network creates ripples
of light reminiscent of rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning.
The cloud shows both how a natural invisible electromagnetism
pervades our environment and also how our mobile phone calls and text
messages delicately affect the new and existing electromagnetic
fields. As an art project, Sky Ear encourages people to become
creative participants in an electromagnetic performance; as an
architecture project, Sky Ear makes visible our daily interactions
with the invisible topographies of electromagnetic space.
Sky Ear will be open to the public at 19.00 on September 15, 2004 at
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Park, London and is
financially assisted by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art,
Science and Technology. More information about the project is
available here: http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear/
