Save our souls - a Twitter art installation
Here’s how the installation looked on the day of the art show.
[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”333” caption=”We mounted the installation on the inside of the Regeneration cafe. The Arduino lies behind the Macbook behind the monitor.”]
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[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”333” caption=”The LEDs are mounted on breadboards suspended on fishing wire, binder clips, rubber bands, chopsticks, and a prayer.”]
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[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”333” caption=”Finished it just in time.”]
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Save our souls - Twitter art installation from Andrew Hao on Vimeo.
What are people saying about the ashes in the world today? This installation visualizes a live Twitter stream on heartache, injustice, loss, and our city and matches them up with the redemptive promises of Isaiah.
Life is difficult, and redemption is something we all long for. What changes do you hope for in your life or in the world? Send a response from your Twitter account to @sos_61 and watch the installation react. If you’d like to be kept anonymous, send your response in a DM to @sos_61.
“I hope for __” “I wish that __” “I want to see __”
A few notes
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Web interface is a fullscreen Google Chrome window. socket.io is the Websocket interface to the node.js backend. The slide transition is animated via a CSS3 animation, and the red overlay is a simple SVG shape plotted with the help of RaphaëlJS.
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The Twitter backend is a collection of four self-updating Twitter searches, one for heartache (“i feel lonely, sad, depressed”), injustice (“violence, war, oppression, justice”), death (“rest in peace, passed away”), and Oakland (“oakland”). A blacklist filters out undesirable tweet keywords (“justin bieber”).
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Additionally, the backend connects to Twitter via the Streaming API and displays a special animation for users who reply via tweet to the @sos_61 account.
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The installation picks a tweet to display and pulses the LED array corresponding to the right tweet.
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Communication to the Arduino happens via a python script over the Firmata protocol, using the python-firmata library. The nodejs server signals the script over a socket connection which will run the pulse animation on the correct pin.
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I printed the graphic on an oversize printer with the good folks at Alameda Copy. Friendly service, fast turnaround, very reasonable prices. Ask for Joe.