Liverpool-based Uniform have been working on a project with the UK Met Office to turn reported data into an audio-visual installation at the V&A as part of the Design Festival’s Digital Weekend.

Using flip-dot technology, the Liverpool agency looks to turn real waves into digital counterparts.

Uniform’s Vicky Pennington explains:

“One of the most interesting things to come from our conversations was the unseen work that goes on. Away from the traditional weather forecast the Met Office is a hive of activity. They have an open data resource called Datapoint that captures real time data from a surprisingly vast network of sensors. In particular, hidden off the coast of the UK is a network of buoys and light vessels creating marine data, 24 hours a day.”

“Refining our idea we started to think about what makes flip-dot different from a modern LCD display and the answer was right in front of us ‘click, click, click.’ The distinctive noise the disks make as they turn over and hit the magnet. We wanted to use this to ask the question what does the ocean around the UK sound like? And how do we bring this data to life in a beautiful way?”

After examining and testing the idea through several prototypes, Uniform chose to stick to the low-res display of the flip-dot. However, one of the biggest challenges was to create a generative wave form thate represented a real wave at the different buoy and light vessel locations.

According to Vicky Pennington, in the end:

“We settled on a Perlin noise algorithm which allowed us to represent the wave height, wave period and the wind speed.”

Judge the results for yourself at http://vimeo.com/107721104

“One of the most interesting things to come from our conversations was the unseen work that goes on. Away from the traditional weather forecast the Met Office is a hive of activity. They have an open data resource called Datapoint that captures real time data from a surprisingly vast network of sensors. In particular, hidden off the coast of the UK is a network of buoys and light vessels creating marine data, 24 hours a day,” – See more at: http://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/2014/10/uniform-explores-what-met-office-data-could-sound-like/#sthash.vXxpHyId.dpuf