Project Blinkenlights was a light installation in the Haus des Lehrers building at the

Alexanderplatz (, ''Alexander Square'') is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from in the north-ea ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

that transformed the building front into a giant low-resolution monochrome computer screen. The installation was created by the German

Chaos Computer Club The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of Hacker (computer security), hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters ...

(CCC) and went online on 11 September 2001 as a celebration of the club's 20th birthday. Some novel uses of the screen are for people to call a number and play

Pong ''Pong'' is a 1972 sports video game developed and published by Atari for arcades. It is one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but B ...

via mobile phone or display animations sent in by the public. Similar installations were created by the CCC for the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 2002 (called Arcade) and for two towers of the

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

(called

Stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopy, stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that ...

). Both installations feature higher resolutions and eight shades of grey. Similar monochrome and color displays have been done on MIT's

Green Building Green building (also known as green construction, sustainable building, or eco-friendly building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's li ...

since at least 1993, when the building's 9x17 array of windows displayed a monochrome

VU meter A volume unit (VU) meter or standard volume indicator (SVI) is a device displaying a representation of the Signal-to-noise ratio, signal level in audio equipment. The original design was proposed in the 1940 Institute of Radio Engineers, IRE pap ...

for the traditional

Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...

concert of the

Boston Pops The Boston Pops is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart. Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symphony Orc ...

orchestra. More recent displays have been in color. The electrical engineering and computer science students of the

Budapest University of Technology and Economics The Budapest University of Technology and Economics ( or in short ), official abbreviation BME, is a public research university located in Budapest, Hungary. It is the most significant university of technology in the country and is considered ...

turn their Schönherz Dormitory into a giant display ("the Matrix") at their annual Schönherz Cup competition, where amongst others, teams compete to create the most interesting and funny animations. A similar display, featuring three colours, is annually created by students of Wrocław University of Technology and the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (, ) is a public research university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Talence. There are al ...

, who have released

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

to create interactive architectural displays. Independently, an installation displaying the message "" (German for "FINISHED") was shown at the completion of the

Elbphilharmonie The Elbphilharmonie (; "Elbe Philharmonic Hall"), popularly nicknamed Elphi, is a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg, Germany, on the Grasbrook peninsula of the Elbe River. The new construction resembles a hoisted sail, water wave ...

in Hamburg in 2016. In August 2023 a new Installation was shown on the CCCamp in Mildenberg. It was called Polychrome and used RGBw LED which have been calibrated as Tim Pritlove shown in a Talk about the Project on Aug. 16. The term " blinkenlights" originates in

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

humor. One of the CCC installations is depicted in the Golden Boy and

Miss Kittin Caroline Hervé (born 15 July 1973), known professionally as Kittin, is a French electronic music producer, DJ, singer, and songwriter. Since rising to prominence in 1998 for her singles "1982" and "Frank Sinatra" with The Hacker, she has worke ...

video for their song " Rippin Kittin". Project-blinkenlights-aerial-view.jpg , Aerial view of Project Blinkenlights in Berlin Elbphilharmonie ist fertig.jpg , The "Fertig" message Project Pressure Voices For The Future. Photo Klaus Thymann.jpg , Project Pressure '' Voices For The Future'', 2019

References

External links

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Video of a winning Schönherz animation and homepage of the Schönherz Blinkenlights
Installation art works {{germany-culture-stub