Introduction: Based on a lengthy research, three projects of interest were identified. The first project entitled "A Bug" uses a bluetooth device to detect the presence of individuals in a specific location. The second project, entitled "Sonic City", detects landscapes and an individual's environment and converts them into music, by using sensors. The third project, entitled "Constraint City", uses WIFI detectors and mechanical effectors "servo motors" to convey the abundance of encrypted Internet networks present in one's surroundings, by tightening the user's corset.
Idea : Based on the three works described above, we have created a project entitled "AudioNation". The idea behind this project was to use a bluetooth antenna, that senses bluetooth devices, to allow the user to experience a digital environment, which normally exists solely beyond his or her five senses. In the 21st Century, people use numerous digital devices on a daily basis. These include laptop computers, cell phones, music players, portable games, etc, many/most of which use bluetooth technology. However, bluetooth signals are undetectable by human senses, leaving us unconscious of the digital communication network within which we live. Does this network, which guides our daily lives, have a specific pattern? What would it sound like? How could we live it first hand, consciously?
Concept : Here, we use a sound library created by artist Clara Massa to render the surrounding devices hear-able. Her sounds are emitted through a waveshield. AudioNation thus makes us conscious for the first time of this unknown physical space. We hope that allowing the user to perceive the signals of the devices we use in our daily lives will give him or her the opportunity to interact with other individuals as well as with his or her environment in a new way. This artistic project should provide us with a novel way of seeing and maybe even interpreting human interaction.
Usability : To make this project practical for its users, and more specifically to allows for user mobility, the device created, described here-after, was inserted into a hat. The user wears the hat to experience his or her as of yet unknown digital environment.
Similar Projects:
- (A)Bug
- Sonic City
- Wifi Straight Jacket
