B6. TECHNIQUE PROPOSAL B6.1 B.E.R.T
Introducing B.E.R.T Our project is driven by a narrative that we have been developing alongside our arduino explorations. This overarching idea combines the physical and digital aspects of our design, driving both the expression of the sculpture and the workflow of the arduino process. Biological Environmentally Responsive Transients (B.E.R.T for short), are fictional and invisible organisms which exist all around us. The site in Wyndham has become an outdoor testing facility, since it has been discovered that these bugs can now be visualised within a field defined by a cage-like structure using experimental new technology. This defined space represents a border crossing, but not for humans moving betweem countries, it is instead for these organisms changing from a state of being completely invisible to a state of being digitally visible. These organisms experience fluctuations in appearance and group behaviour depending on the same energy that we can measure- light, sound and wind. Changes in light level results in a change of size, whereas changes in sound will effect the colour. The number of organisms increases and decreases with the change in wind speed, as the energy from wind causes them to multiply. These are easily controlled inputs found in the parametric model
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diagramatically shown in figure 36. This story can be told and visualised in different ways, such as an easily accessible website that broadcasts a view of the site overlaying the moving organisms onto the landscape. The cage serves as a sort of prop to this broadcast and also as a point of interaction for local users of the site. Highway travellers will only be able to see an intriguing empty cage structure, with simple signage encouraging them to visit the website whenever they can. This website approach has the power of expanding the audience base to an international scale, since anybody can use the internet to view the broadcast. Once a broadcast has been set up, the context in which it can be viewed is quite varied since the internet is accesible from both phones and computers these days. Furthermore it could even be broadcasted as part of an exhibiton in Wyndham, inviting drivers to visit the town centre to engage with the project more directly. This fictional story serves as an abstract and playful way to demonstrate the way even basic technology can harness invisible data from all around us, and use it to inform our designs, adding to the discourse surrounding both environmentally driven and computational architecture.