Noiseboard is a project that uses skateboarding, digital technology and interaction design to stimulate a novel and unexpected understanding of the surrounding environment. Skaters are artists that interpret space differently than most people, being able to see a hidden layer of opportunity embedded in ordinary urban elements. In their eyes, stairs, cement blocks, handrails and benches become the raw material of their performative acts through which they re-interpret the fruition of space and space itself.

The core element of the Noiseboard project is a set of skateboards which have been modified to include hidden in their structure a microcontroller, an accelerometer and a wireless antenna. Such devices translate the movements of the skateboard into digital data that are transmitted to a computer and used by a sound designer to generate sound waves, translating the skater’s movements into sounds that spread across the surroundings.

Noiseboard design consists in two main elemets: The circuits casing, that was conceived as a sort of alien parassite that contaminated the board, and the board itself, that presents on her surface an engraving that consists in a line patterns that recalls the tipical "f"s on traditional instrunents. The whole research was oriented towards an hybridation between modern technology and traditional luthiery

Some pictures of the design and fabrication process can be found here

Noiseboard project was initially funded by Cultura Venezia