Who says wallflowers don鈥檛 grab people鈥檚 attention? A new type of electronically enhanced wallpaper promises not only eye-pleasing designs, but also the ability to activate lamps and heaters 鈥� and even control music systems.
Interactive walls are nothing new, but most rely on expensive sensors and power-hungry projectors to make the wall come alive. Now the Living Wall project, led by at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology鈥檚 Media Lab, offers an alternative by using magnetic and conductive paints to create circuitry in attractive designs.
When combined with cheap temperature, brightness and touch sensors, LEDs and Bluetooth, the wall becomes a control surface able to 鈥渢alk鈥� to nearby devices. You can to turn on a lamp, for example, or set heaters to fire up when the room gets cold.
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鈥淥ur goal is to make technologies that users can build on and change without needing a lot of technical skill,鈥� says Buechley.
To create the wallpaper, the team started with steel foil sandwiched between layers of paper that are coated with magnetic paint 鈥� acrylic paint infused with iron particles. Over this base they paint motifs such as flowers and vines using conductive paint, which uses copper particles rather than iron. The designs form circuits to which sensors, lights and other elements can be attached.
鈥淚t really is just a sheet of paper, and could be produced with existing printing and construction methods,鈥� Buechley says.
Having exposed circuitry on your wall might sound dangerous, but Buechley says the system runs at 20聽volts, drawing around 2.5聽amps when fully loaded with devices. 鈥淵ou can go up and touch the wall and not even feel a tingle,鈥� she says.
But despite its aesthetic appeal, interactive wallpaper is unlikely to start appearing on home walls any time soon, says , a design student at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence who has worked on other interactive wallpaper designs. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how practical they will be in real life,鈥� he says.
Buechley says the wallpaper shows how existing technology can be used in innovative ways with materials and applications normally thought of as 鈥渓ow tech鈥�. She thinks that projects like this will encourage artists to engage more with technology.
She thinks it might also inspire domestic gurus. 鈥淭his is a development platform that might be into,鈥� says Buechley.
