The Nimbos are creatures sensitive to the air quality they breathe and feed on. Some of them are in search of the freshest air in our cities. Right now, you can find them in Milano, Roma, and Napoli.
To find out how they are doing, follow them on Instagram↗.
The Nimbos are highly delicate creatures, and all they need to thrive is clean, fresh air to breathe.
If the air quality they breathe is not ideal, they immediately notice it becoming sad and listless, their skin deteriorates, changes color, and begins to dry out.
The Nimbos
Normally, they wouldn't be so easy to encounter, but as pollution levels rise, more and more Nimbos are solidifying and beginning to roam in search of the very best air.
Nimbo is an experimental project aimed at raising awareness about air quality, conceived and implemented by The Visual Agency using KIUU technology.
How does it work?
Every day, the Nimbos breathe the air around them, immediately adapting to the amount of pollutants in it.
They have two different types of reactions to air quality data. One is immediate, primarily affecting their mood, while the other is slower and deeper, involving changes in their bodily tissues.
For example, a Nimbo's mood immediately worsens if the air quality is poor, but it quickly improves if the air quality gets better. Conversely, a Nimbo's lung flora, the organ through which they breathe and feed, withers after several days of poor air quality and requires several days of good air quality to become fresh and healthy again.
The same applies to small fireflies and plants that are always around them wherever they are.
The chart below groups the main characteristics of the Nimbos and their sensitivity to pollutants.
The data
The Nimbos are fuelled by air quality data provided by Google through its API↗. For each city where a Nimbo resides, the API is queried once a day.
We utilize the synthetic index CAQI↗ based on the concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Ozone (O3), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), and particulate matter (PM10 and PM25).
The effects of air quality and pollutant concentration on the Nimbos' bodies are loosely inspired by effects described in literature on the human body. The Nimbos do not represent the actual human body's response to polluted air but symbolize its risks for awareness purposes.
Nimbo is created by The Visual Agency thanks to KIUU
KIUU is a platform that automatically generates animated videos (motion graphics) using external data sources and textual information. By harnessing automation, KIUU facilitates the creation of large volumes of personalized, high-quality videos.
The platform enables linking an animated template to a data stream using an API, resulting in the creation of data-driven videos as needed, whether it's a few dozen per month or hundreds per day.
Moreover, KIUU has the capability to automatically publish content across a wide range of platforms, including FTP spaces, CMSs, and directly onto all major social media platforms.