MID was invited by curator Rosa Pera to design and develop an installation for the exhibition “FLAIX 2042, 25 years of radio“ which took place in Palau Robert, Barcelona in 2017.

TIMELINE was an interactive installation that reproduces a radio DIAL to revive the spirit of FLAIX radio station, listening to programs, jingles, and songs that can be tuned in chronological order, allowing the visitor to experiment the sounds of 25 years of radio.

The TIMELINE has 14-meter total length. The piece has been designed specifically for the exhibition space, with custom electronics and also digital manufacturing pieces.

Along the interactive surface there are 150 sensitive points that represent chronologically the music hits of the radio station. We designed a hardware device to play and interact with these points that we call TUNER. The TUNER is an embedded audio player with an integrated speaker and rechargeable battery that allows it to detect the TIMELINE sensors and trigger the corresponding audio.

It incorporates a RFID reader and an accelerometer sensor that allows us to interact with the TIMELINE in real time. When the device approaches each point, we can listen to what is hidden there. You also can tune different tracks by moving the TUNER to other points. If you rotate it, you can change the sound source in real time (songs, jingles or programs) and the device responds with color feedback.

We developed a light backlight for the timeline that allows you to visualize the active tracks in real time and give you the information of the different states of the piece.

The installation runs with custom-made software to control the LED screen for the light feedback, and the modes of operation. The software generates the animations in real time, receiving the information wirelessly from the TUNER SPEAKERS, while the sound is playing.