Enmeshed Tinge

Programmer, Designer -- Xuwen Dong

A collaborative project

Supervisor: Stavros Didakis

December, 2022. NYU Shanghai, Shanghai

“Enmeshed Tinge” takes an artistic approach to visually depict Shanghai’s real-time traffic data in the form of a light installation art. By exploring the relationship between environment and data, the installation creates a dynamic, fluid visual space that reflects poetically on the city’s urban ambiance. Here, open data extracted from governmental sources become the main medium of creation, proposing an environment that engages with stacks of the city’s grid. While the metal wire mesh’s serpentine structure mirrors the complexities of the traffic data and physical intersections of roads, the different light patterns illustrate the distinct degrees of congestion in Shanghai’s districts. Ultimately, as a creative visualization of real-time data, “Enmeshed Tinge” offers us a new perception and experience of space through its demonstration of how an architectural space can be in conversation with the outside world.


Watch Video Documentation (google drive)

Technical

Technological Materials

  • Arduino IDE
  • FireBeetle ESP32
  • Neopixel Stripes
  • MQTT (HiveMQ Cloud)
  • Node-RED
  • Baidu Map API: real-time Shanghai traffic data

    • Installation Materials

  • Clear Wires
  • Metal Wire Mesh
  • White Diffusive Fabris & Paper
  • Wood Pieces

    •               Get the traffic data from API in Node-RED and send them through MQTT
                  MQTT Broker receives the data and send them to the FireBeetle ESP32 through WiFi
                  The function that controls the light pattern takes the data as its parameters

    Contribution

  • Make moodboard and design the appearence of the installation
  • participate in building the physical structure
  • Choose and purchase fabric
  • program the pattern in Arduino
  • Test API with Node-RED
  • Node-RED coding debug