DIELECTRIC The buzzing of powerlines is a subtle yet omnipresent phenomenon in urban spaces. If perceived, one might interpret these acoustic manifestations of dynamic electricity as a symbolic expression of the city's enormous need for energy. The project "DIELECTRIC" is an interactive installation inspired by the buzzing sounds that powerlines produce. The elements of the project evoke the technology of energy transmission and the presence of electricity - impalpable and invisible in nature, yet familiar and practical in everyday life. The installation's main components are two powerline crossarms and wires. Halfway between the crossarms the powerline's wires are interwoven to form a hammock. 
The installation's main interface - the hammock - is inspired by observations of powerlines in urban L.A. It is a hybrid sculpture somewhere between a powerline and a traditional hammock, and mixes connotations associated with each. 
The first time the hammock enters Western culture can be very precisely dated to an entry in the journal of Portuguese explorer Pero Vaz de Caminha. On the 27th of April in 1500, he walked on a beach in Brazil and made a strange discovery: Caminha saw people sleeping in what he first believed to be fishing nets. This led to the Portugese word for hammock: "rede de dormir", which translates literally "a net for sleeping". The interface in "DIELECTRIC" also implies the idea of a net - technically a net collecting electromagnetic information from the surrounding space. 
An analog capacitance sensor measures changes of the hammock's electromagnetic field caused by interactors approaching the installation. Based on the sensor values, arcing is triggered in a high voltage transformer. The pulsing and frequency of the arcing is controlled by an EZIO board. Although not meant to be comfortable, interactors can also lay in the hammock. In this case the interactor's body asimilates into the hammock's electromagnetic field and becomes part of the sensor. Other visitors can then trigger arcing by touching the person laying in the hammock. 
The high voltage transformer is located underneath the ceiling, close to one of the crossbars. The transformer's arcing creates an ambient presence of electricity in the exhibition space as a response to visitor interactions. Paper (PDF format): DIELECTRIC paper (1,5 MB) Video documentation: explanatory slideshow (30MB) documentation 1 (13MB) documentation 2 (7MB) All movies are in the quicktime format. Please download the free Quicktime Player if needed. menu |