Canonical Examples

Berlin Wall 25th Anniversary light display

Published

Context

The city of Berlin in 2014 had hundreds of “light balloons” put up across the entire city drawing out exactly where the wall once stood exactly 25 years ago.  At the end of the display the balloons were released into the air symbolizing the end of a once divided Berlin. 

Design concept

The use of the light balloons helps to redraw and help us imagine history for those of us who were never able to see it. These light balloons in a way help create a design space through the whole city that can experienced different ways from different places. For instance the experience and scale of the space would be thought of differently from a viewer from an airplane window and also someone walking through the streets.

Experiential qualities and related concepts

Affective, atmosphere, calm, critical, hybrid, place-specific, sublime.

Augmentation modality

Visual.

Technical options

Using the light balloons as they have in the example...

Prototyping techniques

Image rendering using google maps and some type of design software such as illustrator or photoshop to draw where the wall was from above perhaps?

Source

Berlin, 2014.
Link to Video

 

You may also like

Published

Ice Watch

Twelve large blocks of ice cast off from the Greenland ice sheet are harvested from a fjord outside Nuuk and presented in a clock formation in a prominent public place. The work raises awareness of climate change by providing a direct and tangible experience of the reality of melting arctic ice. Ice Watch has been installed in two locations so far.

Published

Interactive Fishing Party

Projection on a controlled fountain waterscreen of full-length 260m. Use your smartphone as a fishing reel and join forces with other participants, spin you reel round and round to haul in a fish. If you are successful the fish appears in your smartphone.

Published

The Plant Monitor

A camera monitors a section of a greenhouse and feeds the images to a system capable of determining if the plants are healthy or not. Currently there are for example sensors to automatically tell if the plants are too dry but this takes in the whole plants’ appearance, including diseased leaves etc. If a section is deemed to have unhealthy plants, the light changes in that area to make the caretakers aware of the problem without having to go look at a terminal or getting intrusive alerts.