Final Project

Interactive bead curtain

This project is an interactive curtain made of flexible strands with small light nodes. At first glance it reads as a decorative divider, but it functions as a responsive display. Light patterns move across the surface in response to people passing through, turning abstract data into something physical that you can walk through and disrupt.

Britney Spears, Robert Sebree 2000

The light patterns can represent different types of data, such as movement, presence, or environmental input. Rather than displaying this information on a screen, it is translated into shifting patterns across the curtain. While this interface could be used to display all sorts of data, for my final project I would like to work with satellite data. Each strand contributes to a larger system, showing movement, density, and patterns of satellites passing above. It’s not a literal map, but structured enough that you start to recognize that what you’re seeing isn’t random.

As you move closer, the patterns become disturbed or less readable. Not because the system is broken, but because this kind of information is never fully accessible or transparent. The installation plays with the idea that these infrastructures are deliberately opaque, controlled by a small number of actors, and not meant to be clearly understood from the ground.

Satellites are often framed as neutral infrastructure — enabling navigation, communication, and everyday convenience — but they are also deeply tied to military power, surveillance, and strategic control. An increasingly dense layer of orbital systems is being built above us, largely out of public view, forming an infrastructure that can support both communication and destruction. Control over this layer is concentrated in the hands of a few states and private actors, shaping a reality in which critical systems are both essential and unequally governed.

This installation aims to make visible a layer of infrastructure that is normally completely out of sight, and to shift it from something abstract and distant into something physical and immediate. By placing the viewer inside the visualization, it highlights how everyday life unfolds within systems that are not neutral, but shaped by power, control, and strategic interests.

System overview

The curtain consists of multiple flexible strands, each containing a series of small light nodes (LEDs). These are controlled by a microcontroller and respond to sensor input.

Input: magnetic field or flex for movement of the curtain, movement or proximity sensors detect people close by, datasets to form light patterns
Processing: a microcontroller translates this input into light patterns
Output: LEDs embedded in the strands create a dynamic, semi-transparent display

Fabrication and design research

Week 5

In week 5 I explored this design direction by making a small 3D-printed bead curtain test. I was interested in the logic of solid beads becoming flexible once connected, and used the assignment to experiment with a faceted bead shape, a rod running through it, and later a simple linked mechanism that could wiggle a bit more like a curtain.

Week 8

In week 8 I learned how to design and produce custom PCBs, which is directly relevant for embedding light into the curtain. I worked on boards that could drive multiple LEDs and got familiar with the full process from schematic to milling and testing. This gave me a better understanding of how to control several light points at once, and how to think about distributing electronics across a system rather than treating it as a single unit.

Week 9

During week 9 I focused on input devices that could be useful for my final project. Unfortunately the magnetic field sensors got delayed in the mail, so for this week I played with a motion and flex sensor instead. For the motion sensor I build a little PCB with a microcontroller socket and a LED that lights up when motion is detected.

Data research

For the data research I'm lucky to be in contact with Dimitri Tokmetzis from Follow the Money who is currently researching satellites as a NIAS fellow. For Fab Academy however the data research might be out of scope and I may use a controlled test environment for my final project.

Inspiration & References

This project is inspired by projects like Random International’s Rain Room, Studio Drift and United Visual Artists and many more. What I find interesting in these works is how they use light and repetition to create a spatial experience you can move through.

Within Fab Academy there are a lot of projects that deal with LEDs, sensors and interaction, usually in the form of panels or wearables. While not directly similar, they were helpful for thinking about how to build a system with multiple light points. Examples include work like Juliana Lozano — Kinetic Curtain, Adriana Mexicano — wearable vest with proximity sensor + LEDs + optical fiber, Nicole Bakker — The Airable, wearable with LED feedback based on sensed data and Diane Walsh — felt artwork + large LED array.

Notes

At Waag there's some really cool stuff relating to satellites happening that could be good inspiration for my final project, here I'll document what I learn while working in the lab.

The Space Lab at Waag is run by Miha, who has kindly sent me a list of inspirational sources and Zoénie handed me the really cool More-than-Planet Atlas a book by the Space Lab that challenges conventional, often technocratic ways of seeing and representing Earth.

Dimitri stopped by our lab for a meet with Henk, our Fab Lab lead and local instructor, to talk about some of the very nerdy details when it comes to satellites. It was really fun to listen to them share information and geek out over different satellite initiatives in the hacker and maker community.

Henk for instance is working on the FabSat: an initiative that aims to develop an open, Fab Lab-friendly approach for designing and building satellites and related infrastructure, making space systems accessible using the tools, skills and global network of Fab Labs around the world. He even gave a talk on this at the Fab Academy instructors bootcamp this year.

Dimitri in his turn tells us about the Common Space project: is a civil-society initiative that aims to build and operate an independent high-resolution Earth-observation satellite constellation dedicated to humanitarian, crisis, climate, and public-good uses, providing open, trusted satellite imagery that isn’t controlled by governments or commercial licensing restrictions.

Henk tells Dimitri and me about SatNOGS (Satellite Networked Open Ground Station), an open-source project that builds a global network of low-cost satellite ground stations, allowing anyone to receive data from satellites using affordable, often 3D-printed hardware. While this project only tracks known unclassified satellites, Dimitri knows a research paper about eavesdropping on unencrypted satellites.

Resources

Other ideas

Just cause it's fun, here's some ideas that didn't quite make it:

pimp my cargo bike
hand/body size fidget spinner for my neurodivergent babes, other stimming/pressure devices (or like a wapperman machine?!)
cat doorbell (send to Ricardo Marques)
e-ink keyboard

Previous idea

I initially explored the idea of a wearable that displays satellite data, to make the experience more personal. But I moved away from this direction because it leans too much into a “big brother is watching you” narrative, reinforcing common misconceptions about satellites rather than actually deepening understanding of how these systems operate. Below are my old notes.

During Fab Academy I want to create a collection of wearables that explores tensions caused by the juxtaposition of our private and collective lives. With the world rapidly changing our private lives are becoming more and more public whilst we're becoming less private in public. The individual freedoms that in my childhood seemed a given are collectively being threatened. A lot of people know these things are happening, but they seem abstract and far removed from our daily lives. Through this collection I want to show that these developments affects all of us. Show that the our collective freedoms can only be fought for by collectives of individuals.

So what does this mean for my final project? SPACE WARS! One of the developments threating our freedom is invisible warfare. While we may feel individual freedom on the ground in Europe, above our heads wars are fought in our name. To make this less abstract I want to make a ring that through lights displays information about what satellites are currently above your head, and what they are doing there.

Fabrication and design research

In week 2 I explored the wearable direction by designing a small ring, thinking about how satellite data could be translated into something personal and worn on the body. I used that week to get familiar with 2D/3D design tools and to test what kind of form factor would work at that scale. While I later moved away from the wearable concept, this exploration helped clarify how the project could shift from a personal device to a more spatial installation.