Data Engagement

Live, dynamic visualisations driven by real-time data.

Art-meets-utility, we’re guided by data accessibility and transparency. Our visualisations are fed by live data, including weather, Smart City IoT sensors, sales metrics, web analytics – anything with a live data feed.

There’s plenty of live data “available”. We’re here to make it more accessible by connecting people directly to the source through art and creativity.

Engaging and interacting with the data source while using their imagination, people can understand data more meaningfully. We’re excited about the applications for education, critical thinking, internal data presentation, marketing activations and of course art itself.

See our example use cases and first projects below. Get in touch at hello@cusp.co.nz to talk projects, commissions or licensing.

WAVY GRAINY

An animation driven by real-time wave height at your local beach. Freely available and easy to access in any browser, the intensity of the wave shimmering through the grain is controlled by live wave height at your local surf beach.

We connect the animation with real-time IoT data from environmental sensors via the Tomorrow.io API.

Just choose your beach, hit full screen and enjoy :)

READY IN SEPTEMBER ‘25.

Visit wavygrainy.io for more information and partnership opportunities.

LYTTELTON WEATHER

A deliberately literal use case, this first project was created to accompany a music video. The visual elements follow a painterly style, to match the music video. On the left, you’ll see the visualisation as the live data reaches sunset.

A live weather data API controls the animations, thanks to The MetService Point Forecast API.

Animation controls are live Lyttelton weather data:

  • Wave movement height: controlled by live wave height from an IoT sensor in Lyttelton Harbour.

  • Birds rate of movement: controlled by live wind speed data from an IoT weather sensor in Lyttelton.

  • Birds placement on-screen: controlled by live wind direction in Lyttelton.

  • Cloud transparency: controlled by live % cloud coverage in Lyttelton.

  • At the time sunset and sunrise in New Zealand each day, the “Scenes” music video plays.

  • The local time of day in New Zealand controls four visual phases: sunrise, day, sunset, night.

See the project page here and watch the live visualisation here!

ANTARCTICA

Animation controls:

  • Speed of stylised ice sheet/waves melting is based on historic sea ice data over time.

  • Speed and appearance of the swirling snow driven by real-time wind speed and wind direction.

  • The sky in the background fed by a camera on location, pointed directly up at the sky. This live image feed could also be processed via video platform Mux to reflect other live data points.

Installation:

  • Suited to an immersive screen environment, wrapping the animation around 4 walls and a ceiling screen.