information aesthetics.
a set of giant posters located in Madrid, London, Berlin, Brussels & Milan that monitor the noise level on a high-traffic roads. ambient noise levels are displayed via decibel meters connected to LED screens embedded in billboards, in homage to Noise Awareness Day (April 16). the posters were part of AEG-Electrolux's advertising campaign supporting its new silent washing machine. the accompanying Web site also compares decibel levels of the major urban areas on line graphs to learn more about the detriments of noise pollution.
"Local school kids are taking it a step further and are deliberately shouting at the sign in unison in order to make the numbers change. The Manager of the night club is finding the poster helpful too – he is taking photos of the sign in the early hours of the morning to show the local council that he is not making too much noise."
[link: noiseawareness.co.uk & noiseawareness.blogspot.com (blog) & creativity-online.com ]
I'd like to see one of this thing in the metro/underground of Milan. Worse than a club!!
This is one of the most interesting billboard projects I've seen in a while - the commercial tie in is even clever.
Ignoring any commercial tie-ins, this is a great eco-visualization project. I think part of what makes it effective is the immediacy. You can't get a bunch of people together and suddenly change the color of the helium balloon over Paris.
This is not a good project. Why? I can see everyone beeping and making as much noise as possible to raise the numbers, on purpose.
At the door of the MALBA museum in Buenos Aires there's a giant vumeter (technically a peak meter, I think) showing the noise levels in real time:
http://www.malba.org.ar/web/tnImagenes.php?tn=t4&id_tn=63&seccion=exposiciones&subseccion=actuales
but how loud is a decibel? problem is, the billboards give no sense of scale. something which measures the current level against, say, the current level in the countryside would be a lot more affecting, and not place a gleeful emphasis on making the numbers go up.