New energy harvesting technologies are often based on thermoelectric generators, created from materials conducting with positive particles moving away from the heat towards cold to generate maximum voltage and minimum waste. This has the potential to enable each of us to capture and share energy in the urban environment from anything which emits heat or motion – from our own bodies to wheels of cars or the heat of the sun. Positively Charged presents a vision of the future in which we share responsibility to be these positive particles to keep the city alive and care for the environment around it.

visitors are invited to use their bodies and physical activity to generate energy which power up the display. Individual elements of the installation respond to particular actions - i.e. the act of cranking activates the heart beat sensor which after sensing the rhythm of the visitor heart switch the light in the EL wire and sets it in motion. That leads to turning on the main part of display - the receiving end of the produced “energy”. Its form can vary - depending on the place and the context. For instance in Taiwan the main part of the display is made up with over 700 meters of EL wire representing electricity lines of the city - veins which supply “nutrients” to keep the city happy and alive. Visitors not only have to “work” to make it visible, but also they have to find a right pace for their work: if they “crank” too fast a lot of their produced “energy” is wasted as escaping heat and that creates imbalance in the illumination - eventually switching all EL wire off;

If more visitors interact with the installation at the same time it might be easier to crank (and produced energy) but at the same time it is easier to create this imbalance, and so contributing visitors need to find a way to collaborate to keep the display running smoothly.