The event, part of the popular TED non-profit organization's Ideas Worth Spreading public speaking programme, took place at Curio House in Hamburg under the theme Realities Rebuilt. Some 22m2 of LC Series LED panels were installed in the ceiling of the conference space and used to display live data from the global Twitter network related to TEDxHambug.
Also involved were Martin MAC 301 Wash LED moving heads used for backdrop illumination, and Martin MAC 350 Entour LED moving heads used to illuminate TEDxHamburg logos at key locations throughout the conference area.
The TWEETx installation, created by anOtherArchitect Berlin in collaboration with Kollision and Martin Professional, visualized tweets containing specific keywords by continuously scanning and filtering Twitter's data stream. The selected tweets were represented on the LED panels as dynamically moving bubbles that sought like bubbles carrying the same keywords. The idea was to create a shared and engaging experience that encouraged people to actively debate a subject.
The conference host encouraged the audience to tweet during the conference and as immediate feedback, the audience experienced a visual representation of their tweet move above them. The tweet bubbles, portrayed in bright colours to indicate language, travelled across the LC panels above the speakers. Here they grouped in relation to keywords which gave insight into the communication and activities within Twitter. The slowly growing groups of bubbles gave an indication of the most popular keyword over time, and were articulated by the host, who also disclosed how many tweets each group represented during breaks.
The intensity of the LED panels was adjusted during the course of the programme. Some 700 tweets were received during the conference both from inside the conference room and from others following the conference on the Internet around the world.
(Jim Evans)
