The Faraday Café experiment closed its doors yesterday after two weeks as part of Vancouver’s Chinatown pop-up store project. Social artist Julien Thomas and Hughes Condor Marler Architects created the cell-phone free café by covering the building in a mesh that shields electromagnetic fields.
The café walls have been lined using an aluminum window mesh as a faraday cage that has the ability to let light and sound through but not digital reception. The team started the project in the cafe as a step towards creating personal spaces that block wireless signals and restore non-digital, social interaction.The two week experiment has drawn significant attention as people reflect on the need for technological devices as a form of social connection.
Read more about the use of faraday cages as a means to restore more direct social interaction.
