Political Atmosphere
→ "Political Atmosphere" by Felix Lenz traces the invisible connections between flight turbulence, climate change and war. My task was to write the code for this installation.
![Siren in a dark room](/img/siren-room.jpg)
"Political Atmosphere" traces the invisible connections between flight turbulence, climate change and war. Flight data is captured by an antenna and sent to a controller. Felix asked me to visually display the flight data and correlate the measured flight density in the sky with the speed of a DC motor. This motor turned a gearbox which ultimately triggered a siren. The more planes in the sky, the more frequently the centerpiece of the exhibition - the deafening siren - is triggered.
![antenna and a plane](/img/antenna.jpg)
![acrylic gearbox](/img/gearbox.jpg)
The Code
The open source software dump1090 was used to translate the antenna data to json data. This data was then sent to an Electron UI. If there was a change in flight-density, the App emitted the data via a websocket. The controller was therefore able to set the speed of the DC-Motor by changing the pwm signal. This was done by using a double-h-bridge board.
![Siren and interface are outside](/img/installation.jpg)
All images are © Felix Lenz 2020. The Project “Political Atmosphere” was designed by Felix Lenz. If you want to read more about it, visit his website. Learn how to run a React App inside Electron here.