4 hours ago
Hello everyone,
I'm Adrien Revel, technical director at AKER. I'm writing on behalf of artist Marie-Luce Nadal to request access to Blitzortung's historical lightning data for a non-commercial sound art installation.
The project is called "Skin Of the Sky" and premieres June 6, 2026 at the Église Saint-Laurent in Paris during Nuit Blanche. The concept: members of the public call a phone number and confide a wish to the sky. Their voice messages are then spatialized inside the church, triggered and positioned by real lightning strike coordinates. Using an azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the church, each strike maps to a physical direction in the nave. Storms over Sweden send voices from the north, storms over Brazil from the south-west, and so on.
What we find beautiful is the kinship between our projects: Blitzortung is built by a worldwide community of volunteers mapping the electrical activity of the sky; Skin Of the Sky collects anonymous voice messages, the emotional activity of people looking up. Both are participatory, open, and built on collective contribution.
What we need: access to a few days of global archived strike data for offline playback. We do not need real-time access.
Regarding the external project criteria:
And if anyone here would like to participate, the phone line is open now: call +33 1 59 58 00 99 and confide a wish to the sky. Your voice could end up traveling through the church, carried by one of the lightning strikes you helped detect.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the remarkable network you've all built together.
Adrien Revel
I'm Adrien Revel, technical director at AKER. I'm writing on behalf of artist Marie-Luce Nadal to request access to Blitzortung's historical lightning data for a non-commercial sound art installation.
The project is called "Skin Of the Sky" and premieres June 6, 2026 at the Église Saint-Laurent in Paris during Nuit Blanche. The concept: members of the public call a phone number and confide a wish to the sky. Their voice messages are then spatialized inside the church, triggered and positioned by real lightning strike coordinates. Using an azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the church, each strike maps to a physical direction in the nave. Storms over Sweden send voices from the north, storms over Brazil from the south-west, and so on.
What we find beautiful is the kinship between our projects: Blitzortung is built by a worldwide community of volunteers mapping the electrical activity of the sky; Skin Of the Sky collects anonymous voice messages, the emotional activity of people looking up. Both are participatory, open, and built on collective contribution.
What we need: access to a few days of global archived strike data for offline playback. We do not need real-time access.
Regarding the external project criteria:
- Non-commercial: public artwork, free admission, co-produced with the City of Paris
- Original use: lightning data drives spatial sound, not a map or weather tool
- Freely accessible to the public
- Blitzortung.org credited as data partner in all signage and communications
- No redistribution of raw data, used only within the physical installation
And if anyone here would like to participate, the phone line is open now: call +33 1 59 58 00 99 and confide a wish to the sky. Your voice could end up traveling through the church, carried by one of the lightning strikes you helped detect.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the remarkable network you've all built together.
Adrien Revel