lighTweets

lighTweets displays live tweets without a screen. A beam of light writes each message onto a phosphorescent surface, where it glows for a moment and fades.

A Processing app fetched tweets and turned the text into coordinates, and an Arduino drove a simple pan-and-tilt mount to steer the light. Most of the work was calibration: the beam's speed and intensity had to leave a legible trail, and the servos had to keep up with the incoming stream without losing accuracy.

It was exhibited at Wired Next Fest in Milan as part of Lo-Fi, curated by Elian Stefa.