During my first year at HyperWerk I focussed on physical computing and interaction design. In a project with Annette Ebi we came up with the Insilio concept (latin for “jumping high”). We designed an installation which offers a physical experience of Google Earth. Jumping on the Insilio trampoline offeres a particular superhero experience, being able to jump on top of skyscrapers or even out of the earth’s atmosphere.

Realisation: We mounted an infrared sensor on the ceiling above a trampoline which measures the distance to the jumper‘s head. A script written in the language of the open source physical computing plattform “Arduino” translated the electrical resistance of the sensor to digital values. In Google Earth we captured and converted different zooming into Quicktime movie clips. Processing (open source software for generative art) translated the data from Arduino to actual frame positions in the movie clips.