In the courtyard of the Museu Frederic Marés in Barcelona, IaaC ‘plants’ DATA NET, a new artificial tree, in the occasion of the Llum Bcn 2014 festival of light. DATA NET is born, a new tree next to the existing ones, forming an interactive mesh shading museum patio.
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THE CONCEPT – Tangible interaction of Citizens Data.

In a world with an increasing flow of information, we encounter a lack of tools and representations of the data that we generate everyday. DATA NET is an artificial tree that forms an interactive mesh encompassing the visitor within the existing environment allowing the visualising of the data they generate.

Cities are places where dense data is generated. The project proposed tools to allow cities to perform as organisms, processes and visualise the data generated within its fabric, and eventually become behavioural.

THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE – Read the data and interact with it.

One can see the installation illuminated, but can also find himself, as a visitor, participating in the project. The intensity of light of the installation changes, reacting to the location and the density of the visitors through a series of sensors that track peoples’ movement.

Visitors are not only observers of a space but participants in its creation, definition and variation.

THE TECHNICAL PRINCIPLE – Input: Motion tracking + Urban Sensor; Output: Controlled Light.

Using multiple video tracking sensors (kinect) combined with a blob detection software, the exact position of people with in the installation is tracked, generating local data. Data are sent over UDP to a custom Processing program that in return controls each of the 100 Led – also custom made – through a DMX controller. As the entore installation is produced by digital means, the output can be controlled, therefore allowing smooth interaction.

DATA NET is reflecting a living organism that moves and evolves according to the data generated by the public.

Design Team

Areti Markopoulou, Silvia Brandi, Luis Fraguada, Guillem Camprodon,

Anastasia Pistofidou, Alexandre Dubor, Rodrigo Aguirre, Pablo Martinez.

In partnership with Fab Lab Barcelona

And in collaboration with Relco Lighting

Photos by Filippo Poli