Dubbed “Sounds of NYC,” this moving map of sound uses 180 Play:1 speakers filled with LED lights as a display. Those light-up speakers act purely as “pixels”—they don’t actually produce sound because they’ve been gutted. To handle the audio, there are 120 black Play:1 units on either side of the display.
Once you stand in front of the wall, it greets you with a giant “YO!” Then the display morphs into a map of the five boroughs. A Kinect controller above the speaker wall acts as an input device, and moving your hands around selects different parts of the city. White “pixels” display the selectable locations. Once they’re selected, they pop out of the wall thanks to Arduino controllers behind the scenes. A woman’s voice announces the location and artist, and the system plays a song that represents the area.
via Wired