Concept:
Creating an artificially propagated online media spectacle by flying giant unidentifiable objects throughout the city, subverting surveillance practices by providing our own surveillance system of New York City.
Summary:
In the same vein of H.G. Wells’ radio announcement of the War of the Worlds, in which he drove the nation into a frenzy, we hope to create a hopefully similar spectacle using three large-scale floating objects. Instead of using the radio we will be using the Internet as our medium for propaganda. Three large-scale floating masses will fly around different sections of New York City. Each ‘blimp’ will contain wireless cameras that will send video to a web interface where users can track each blimps location and view of the city. If technology and budget permit we also hope to put giant ‘markers’ on the ground in parts of the city where the blimps are flying, which would allow us to map virtual layers of geography on top of the camera’s view of the city creating and augmented real-time view of the city. People viewing the project over the web as well as from the ground will have completely shifted perception of the city for that moment in time. We also hope to have a live camera stream from the ground that online user’s can cut to as well, where different people are being interviewed about the event.
Project Developments:
A smaller scale version of this project will be performed indoors at the NYU, ITP Spring show May 9th & 10th. We are currently in the process of creating a 5-foot version of the flying object that will be flown during the show. This blimp will have different motors attached to it and be able to fly in different directions based on what colors the user selects. For example, if looking through the blimp’s camera someone is standing with a green shirt, then an online user clicks on that shirt. The blimp will then continue to fly towards the color. The camera attached to the blimp will serve as a video sensing controller continuously tracking a different source. We see this project as the precursor to a larger version that takes place throughout the city.
We are currently funding the project ourselves and using low cost components to achieve positive results. A cheap nokia cell phone camera with our own Java midlet application will hopefully suffice, although we are also testing using wireless Radio Frequency cameras. The blimp itself is being designed with extremely lightweight fabrics to hold the desired components. Approximately 5-feet around of mylar filled with helium can hold roughly 1/4 of a pound. It will be designed with iridescent material in a series of interconnected pods, a shape that will not be recognizable as a typical blimp.
Elements:
-Creating 1-3 different floating objects
-each one is equipped with java midlets writing images to a server.
-users can navigate through the different cameras through an online flash interface
-usage of mapquest openapi for geotracking of the blimps locations
