For the physical computing midterm project I worked in collaboration with Keunjung Bae. The assignment was Halloween themed, so we decided to build a device that allows one to search for the spirits stuck between worlds. Inspired by technology used by the ghost hunting communities (namely ghost boxes,) we came up with our own interface for finding ghosts.
We chose a dark, mysterious look for the box, so we chose glossy acrylic as the main fabrication material. Using the illusion technique called Pepper’s Ghost (so many ghosts!,) we display a visualization of the spirit search frequency spectrum as a hologram on the box screen.
Using a knob, the user explores the frequency spectrum and, eventually, reaches a few spirits.
Sonically, the white noise sounds coming out of the box are produced by an FM Radio Receiver which jumps between different frequencies a few times a second.