SkyTrace

SkyTrace India is an interactive, large-scale installation that visualizes the environmental footprint of India’s aviation sector. The work transforms abstract aviation statistics into a tangible, spatial experience, bridging the gap between the convenience of travel and its ecological consequence.The installation opens with a macro, real-time map of Indian airspace. Thousands of flight paths are rendered as "plexus" of interconnected nodes. Every path on the screen is already live-calculated, displaying its specific CO₂ emissions and fuel consumption. The screen is a dense, pulsing network of the energy required to keep India moving. Using hand-tracking as the sole input method, visitors can reach out and select a city. Upon selection, the visual seamlessly zooms into that urban center. The data then shifts from a national overview to a hyper-local breakdown: daily flight frequencies, the ratio of international vs. domestic traffic, and the specific environmental burden that city carries. This transition allows visitors to toggle between different visualization modes, such as a localized heatmap, to compare their surroundings with other urban hubs. The core of the project is the translation of flight telemetry and emission models into a visual language that emphasizes weight and volume. It asks the visitor to move beyond being a passive passenger and instead confront the invisible atmospheric cost of their city’s connectivity.

Core Question: How does the individual choice of a city’s mobility translate into a collective, invisible burden on our shared environment?