Case from Shep Korvin - Weather Flower

Impressionistic Displays - Weather Flower

Real world flowers feed on water and dirt... virtual flowers, on the other hand, feed on data!

Each "weather flower" is linked to a first-life geographic location. Whenever the flower feels "hungry", it links out to the internet and taps into an xml feed containing weather data for its real-life "home" location.

Like a real flower, the appearance of the weather flower is affected by the food it consumes. If it's a sunny day in real-life, the flower petals turn a deep red colour.... and as the temperature drops, the hues turn towards colder whites and blues. Similarly, the shape and texture of the flowerhead mutates according to prevailing weather conditions... so, for example, on a bright sunny day, the flower has an almost daisy-like appearance... during thunderstorms, the petals adopt a spikier, harsher look. There are 168 different "mutations" that the flower could take on, depending on the prevailing climate

The soft aesthetics of these sorts of displays seem well-suited for domestic environments. Perhaps les demanding than more precise information, which permits a degree of ambiguity that might encourage imagination and speculation.

Reference
Shep Korvin. 2006. Blog is the new black.
http://shep.typepad.com/shep_korvin/2006/09/weatherflower.html (Accessed August 03, 2007).