Mobile World Centre inaugurates Connected Beings, a set of exhibits on connectivity applied to citizens’ daily lives

• An interactive model of Barcelona built with LEGO blocks, a connected garden and an interactive installation with expert opinions are some of the features that may be seen until July
• InQBarna, the Catalonian company specialised in musical apps, offers a music and light show using its Splyce application at the inauguration ceremony

March 20, 2015

Mobile World Centre inaugurated Connected Beings yesterday, a series centred on connected life and the value of shared information that may be visited for free until next July.

Curated by Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the exhibit offers a route looking at the applications and all the potential connectivity when applied to people’s day-to-day lives, homes, and transport systems. Through a permanent exhibition of interactive facilities and a parallel programme of activities, Connected Beings invites one to reflect on technology as an element transforming our model of society.

The inauguration ceremony drew over 100 people to the Mobile World Centre. InQBarna, a Catalonian company specialised in the development of musical applications, offered a music and light show using its application Splyce, regarded as one of the best musical apps in the App Store in 2013, and the winner of a UN World Summit Award Mobile.

Connected Beings, or how technology makes us better

The Connected Beings exhibition area is made up of six interactive installations produced by artists and creators at the national and international levels. The first, Connecting the dots (Xavi Tribó) illustrates in a visual way the conveyance of digital information and the complex interplay that connectivity generates. The piece reproduces the machine-to-machine journey made trillions of times every day between the world’s millions of connected devices.

The second installation, Iotorama, created by the London agency Alpha-ville, illustrates in an entertaining way what the Internet of Things is and reflects on how we are designing the world of tomorrow. By playing and interacting with six screens and an experimental Website, the visitor discovers how to improve people’s lives by combining data and technology.

Connected materials (The Curious Link – Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (CSIC) – La Salle Campus Barcelona-Universitat Ramon Llull) is an installation made up of three components: “The sounds of the city” allows one to interact with a map of Barcelona and discover the sounds of different areas around the city thanks to a conductive ink game, electrical currents and electrons. “Music in the air,” meanwhile, allows one to create music with a multicoloured harp by placing his hands near the surface. The instrument features nanosensors, developed at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB), which detect differences between the ambient temperature and one’s hand, activating different sounds. Finally, “Colour-changing curtain” is a luminescent curtain featuring a fibre optic fabric lit up with an LED light source.

The Connected City (Invenio, Learn by doing) is an interactive model of Barcelona built with LEGO blocks that incorporate elements and sensors typical of the smart city. The installation offers, in real-time, services related to transportation and parking spots, and shows how the IoT enhances urban services and citizens’ quality of life.

Facing Connectivity (HerraizSoto&Co) is an installation made up of four interactive busts that explain their idea of an interconnected and ultra-connected world, ultimately allowing the visitor to interact with his own bust. Finally, Jardí.net (The Curious Link/The Green Effect/City of Barcelona) presents an indoor garden connected with sensors and devices that allow its plants to live autonomously.

In addition to the six installations, Connected Beings includes an audio-visual selection of documentaries, animations, and videos that expose visitors to the cornerstones and key areas of IoT.

Parallel activities

The new Mobile World Centre series also presents a programme of parallel activities. “Jardí.net” organizes a workshop allowing horticulture aficionados to learn basic Arduino (a free hardware platform) programming concepts. The goal is to integrate the technology into urban orchards, optimising water, and light resources. These sessions will take place on 24 April, 22 May and 12 June.

On the Saturdays of 28 March, 25 April, and 23 May Connected Beings presents “The lost treasure,” a family-oriented feature fomenting people’s interaction with the city in which participants will construct and program a robot to recover a treasure.

A window on the Congress

Connected Beings opened its doors on 2 March as part of the special programming organized by Telefónica and MWCB on the occasion of the Mobile World Congress 2015.

Parallel to the exhibition, during the first fortnight of March Mobile World Centre showcased a selection of the latest developments by Samsung, Sony, Microsoft, LG, HTC, Alcatel, Huawei, ZTE and Motorola. This event allowed more than 40.000 citizens to find out about the latest new products and features presented exclusively at the last Mobile World Congress.