Context aware and communication light device for bicycles
Year: 2015
Authors: Paloma Oliveira and Mateus Knelsen
Exhibited in:
– Red Bull Station Basement Residency Exhibit. Curated by Gisela Domschke
– Unfolding exhibited. Approximately 800cm³ PLA. Curated by Gabriel Menotti

Bicilumen intended to be a platform for meetings and sociability among cyclists, providing an aesthetic experience for your ride around the city. Bicilumen seeks to foster debate about the bikes as transformers vehicles of city experience, not only in the context of citizenship and urban displacement, but also as potential platforms for other aesthetic and sensory experiences of the move. Work is born on a metaphor for cyclist as fireflies, understanding the bicycle as a communicative body. We can think of forms of communication between these bodies that provide cyclists a unique experience of sociability, expression, sensoriality and security. We are developing a luminous electronic-digital device capable of emitting light of different colors and frequencies, equipped with an algorithm that will generate unique behavior patterns for each “cyclist-firefly” that reacts to the presence or proximity of others, learning different patterns of communication with these other organisms.

When the Red Bull Station Basement Residency called for projects that proposed ways of “hacking” São Paulo, in order to find new approaches to the city’s chronic problems, Mateus Knelsen and I thought right away to work with bicycles. At that moment in 2015, the bicycle was at the center of political and social debates, since mayor Fernando Haddad was implementing several new kilometers of bicycle exclusive paths in town, breaking with a long history of automobile-oriented urbanism. We then started to investigate a little about what was the social context in which the bicycle was inserted into, in order to figure out what kind of problems cyclists were facing.

It was then that we discovered a few surprising and even shocking numbers: only 6% of cyclists of São Paulo were women, and only 17.5% of cyclists were 25 years old or younger (according to research made by Ciclocidade, an association of urban cyclists of São Paulo). These numbers suggested that people did not feel safe riding bikes around the city, specially those that were part of profiles that were statistically more exposed to violence.

We then came up with an idea of designing a device that could make people feel safer while on wheels, specially those that do not bike in groups and feel too intimidated by the dangers of the streets. For that, we started a research on the behavior of fireflies, supposing that their communication with light could be approached as a reference for the communication in between cyclists. Night time is, after all, the most problematic period for cyclists. So many of them use lanterns and light-emitting devices to make themselves observable to others in traffic. How could such a device be improved by looking at the behavior of fireflies? And also, could we think on ways to make this device a personal way to communicate with others, beyond the safety concerns? How could light be expressive, like those of fireflies?

It was clear for us that the device “behaviors” should be a response to the environment, and not only to the individual device user, but to all of the users. This device should be able to let you know if other users are around, in case you want to ride together, but also in case other cyclists need help. You should also be able to orient yourself, so why not make it work as a compass as well? Or make it point the way to places of interest, such as a bike workshop, or a bike-friendly cafe?

That is how Bicilumen was born. In order to achieve such a variety of behaviors, the light device was designed so that it can connect to a smartphone application, which manages the current emitted light pattern. The device is entirely made with do-it-yourself opened technologies (such as Arduino), and it uses a variety of sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope) to track the current state of the cyclist. If a sudden drop of height is registered by the sensors, the Bicilumen “interprets” that as an accident (probably the cyclist has fallen), and it emits a warning to nearby devices that someone has had a problem, pointing the direction of the incident. Outside of abnormal conditions, Bicilumen works as a light-emitting device that helps the cyclist to remain visible in the streets. The light patterns can respond to other sensors connected to the smartphone, such as a heart rate monitor device, so that the behavior of light emitted by Bicilumen is unique. You can also set Bicilumen to let you know if other cyclists are around, so that you can meet new people and share routes. When in groups, just like what happens to fireflies, all Bicilumen devices try to synchronize their light patterns, generating unique group behaviors and a particular light show. Also, for orientation purposes, the device can work as a compass and give directions to places of interest programmed in the smartphone application.