Neighbourhood Satellies Thesis Project
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UNESCO Toy Workhop
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F.R.U.I.T.
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Learning Tree
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The Global Warming
Tracking Network
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Great Park Project
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The Amazing
All-Band Radio
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Airplant
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The Zone
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Memory Sketchbook
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Games for Mobiles:
Wolf and Sheep
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Sonypoly
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Gaming in a
Cellular World
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Water as Interface
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Gravity
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Literatur Machen
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Visionaire Contribution
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Coming to Venice and thinking about the future was kind of odd, as the city is slowly drowning in the sea. In fact, many beaches in Italy face this fate, due to the effects of global warming. The situation allowed me to envision a concept of shared technology, one that united the efforts of many to monitor environmental change.
 
With only this part of the Antarctica melting away, the world sea level rises about 8m.
 
My question became: with a physical centre in Venice, can we use the Telecom Italia’s expansive network to track global warming, giving this trend a presence in our daily lives?
What if their telecommunication satellite scans the earth, and distributes its data to cell phone clients, using their collective computing power to analyze this data?
 
 
 
As in the SETI@Home project, where people offer the idle time of their computers to search for signals from outer space, people can offer their phones to participate in the analysis of global warming data, to detect changes on the earth’s surface.
 
   
 
People would not need to oversee their calculations, but while they are washing their hair or dreaming on the subway, suddenly their cell phone gives them a sign, that for example, a piece of Antarctica has just broken away, and they are shown the evidence and effects. In this moment, they are asked to make a wish for the future.
 
In Venice, at the Global Warming Tracking Centre (Future Centre), a parliament gathers whenever a global warming event occurs. They send out all the wishes collectively in a sacral ceremony to the TI satellite, from where they will continue traveling on eternally as radio waves.
This parliament however is not a particular elected circle of people. Much more, anyone can participate in this ceromony who happens to be nearby on such occasions.
 
 
A new display will be illuminated at the Centre that shows the date, event, and related messages. Like this, the exhibit will be changing through time and people can come to read the wishes and see how a history of events has evolved.
 

 
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November 2004

Conceived for Telecom Italia Future Center in Venice as part of the Applied Dream workshop series at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.

Workshop lead:
Gillian Crampton-Smith, Ralph Ammer
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