electric hyphae
Do you know where the power inside your outlet at home comes from? This project is all about revealing the underground structure of electricity grids that is so well hidden from our daily life we barely notice it anymore. To make the invisible visible, we created an interactive experience that makes it possible to see and hear electricity. The installation picks up electromagnetic waves and transforms them into sound and reactive visuals. These visuals resemble underground hyphae networks which can be found in forests. These help trees communicate with each other, but also exchange nutrients, similar to the human-made electricity grid.
When we first showed the installation to an audience and let people interact with it, we quickly saw that people were fascinated, but also struggled with the setup a bit.
We therefore iterated the concept and turned it into a phone app. This app scans people's surroundings using a camera and detects objects that emit electromagnetic waves. The hyphae then appear on the screen as an overlay, creating unique patterns based on the measured data.
This makes the experience more individual and gives people the chance to move around freely while exploring.