Wi-Fi flowers sprouting across U.S.

Poetic Kinetics' Wi-Fi flowers

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--A pair of Los Angeles artists have teamed up with Toyota on an unusually functional art project: a set of large, colorful flowers that have been providing free Wi-Fi and power outlets in public places around the country.

Currently on display in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens, the flowers--the creation of a company called Poetic Kinetics and its principals, Patrick Shearn and Cynthia Washburn--are part of a campaign for Toyota's newest generation Prius.

Brightly colored by day and lit up with LEDs at night, the flowers have been on tour around the country for several weeks. According to John Lisko, the executive communications director for Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota's ad agency on the project, the flowers have gone through Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, and will shortly be departing for Los Angeles.

Inspired, at least in part, by a set of giant, mobile flowers Shearn built for Burning Man in 2005 and 2006, Toyota commissioned the project to reflect the theme of the new Prius: Harmony between man, nature, and machine.

The Wi-Fi flowers are lit up at night.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Run on solar power, the flowers pull in an Internet signal via a 3G network, explained Washburn, and then convert it to Wi-Fi, which covers a radius of about 200 feet around each flower.

For now, the project is no more than temporary art. But Lisko said that Toyota is "thinking through" the possibility of providing permanent versions, particularly because, he said, the public feedback has been so strongly positive.

Designed for Burning Man 2005 and 2006, these two art cars, a flower and a venus fly trap, were among the most popular pieces at Burning Man.

(Credit: Poetic Kinetics)

[Random_Walk]

They must have just moved them in... I recognized the first image's background almost immediately.

OTOH, if they make 'em permanent, maybe they can do something that doesn't look like so much plastic. I can already tell without looking that they must clash pretty hard with the existing statuary...

[ReVeLaTeD]

I think you miss the point. They're not trying to blend in. They want to stand out as "green" amongst so much that isn't.

If I were them though, I would have picked something different than a flower. Like a windmill or something.

[Random_Walk]

I don't mind them not quite blending in, but the plastic look sort of reverses what they're trying to do (harmonize between human and nature), no?

[kaibelf]

From what I understand, the entire pieces are recycled. Either way, I saw these in Chicago, and was blown away. Good Wi-Fi, and even outlets to plus in laptops? And people were just doing work outside, enjoying fresh air for once.

Brilliant execution!

[fokkwp]

Now you understand why Burning Man entirely removes its art from the desert, and each year comes back with new creations. It's the opposite of uninspired space-ruining junk like this, planting itself in the midst of permanent habitation where everyone is forced to live with it, even those who don't like staring at a garish pile of plastic.

[arioch11]

From the same event, Burning Man 2006, It looks like these solar powered wifi flowers also took ideas and inspiration from the funded art project, A Field of Sunflower Robots.

http://images.burningman.com/index.cgi?image=26249

[arioch11]

http://www.sunflowerrobots.com/

[DaBlackchief]

They should do this to cell phone towers.