Wireless Balloon Clouds

Mia over at Popgadget, reports on a one night event called Sky Ear in which a glowing "cloud" of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky.

The cloud consists of 1000 extra-large helium balloons that each contain 6 ultra-bright LEDs (which mix to make millions of colours). The balloons can communicate with each other via infra-red; this allows them to send signals to create larger patterns across the entire Sky

Using mobile phones people can listen to the actual sounds up high, the electromagnetic sounds of the sky as well as streams of "whistlers" and "spherics" (atmospheric electromagnetic phenomena that are the audible equivalent of the Northern Lights). Of course, the action of calling the cloud changes the electromagnetic environment inside and causes the balloons to vary in brightness and colour.

Sky Ear has had two successful launches, in Fribourg, Switzerland (July 4, 2004) and Greenwich, London (September 15, 2004).

emily | 8:21 AM | SMS and the Arts |
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