CARLOS GAMBOA

Agencia Lunar Meestli | Kiosco del Centro de Tlalpan, Mexico City | 28 de febrero, 2010

Meestli is an agency with the goal of projecting the celestial vault and the moon in public spaces of the Valley of Mexico. The company generated an urban approach to the experience of contemplating the sky, stars and celestial bodies. Meestli’s goal is cultivate contemplation as an activity that links us to our environment while becoming more aware about the human-nature and human-cosmos relationships. Contemplation is an activity that generates inspiration and intangible pleasure.

On February 28, 2010, at the kiosk of the Tlalpan’s center (Mexico City), we hosted the first intervention of the Meestli Lunar agency in two stages. The first one was an audiovisual interaction using thermal and movement sensors programmed to detonate predefined sounds and images as people passed by or got close in the kiosk. The second was an audiovisual improvisation with the same sensors and a graphic platform called Stellarium1 (educational software of the celestial vault), which monitors the location of stars. Stellarium is a free and open-source software. It shows a realistic 3D sky, just like you can see with your eyes, binoculars or a telescope (http://www. stellarium.org/es).

Based on Paul Bourke’s (comp.) “Dome projection using a spherical mirror” and the “Portable domes” project from Stellarium, this project pretends to organize festivals to promote cultural expressions related to the moon, as well as dissemination of basic information about this satellite and the celestial vault in general.

Circuit Platform. Hardware: Arduino Mega an Arduino Duemilanove. Xbee for wireless transfer. Pure Data/Pduino on a PC. Integrate circuit for the 6 photo resistor.  Echo Audio Fire with 4 channels, lamps, 4 ground monitors (speakers). Software: Arduino, Pure Data, Stellarium, Resolume Avenue. Input: Arduino Mega receiving serial data from the circuit of photo resistors, transmission through Xbee to the PC. Through pduino (arduino for pc) interpreting light variation an hear variation to shoot 250 audio loops. Video interacted with sound through FFT analysis of Resolume Avenue in real time. Output: 4 speakers, projector with a macro lens installed.