Digital art, architecture and beyond billboards and fields,
Las Vegas in July unveiled an extravagant spectacle, a massive spherical structure encased in LED lights, measuring 366 feet high and 516 feet wide.
This entertainment event venue instantly captured the public’s attention, becoming a local landmark and attracting global attention through extensive news coverage.
Similar spherical concepts have been proposed in London and on a smaller scale in Los Angeles.
These massive display structures open questions about interfaces as digital canvases.
What role can architecture play as an urban canvas other than a billboard?
And what are the different ways for architecture to engage the public through digital art besides giant LED fields?
Vegas Sphere Artist Course
In September of this year, Vegas Sphere began its artist cycle using its 1.2 million LED facade as a 360-degree digital art display.
Its first artist, Refik Anadolu, takes over the field with an AI data sculpture called “Automated Hallucination: The Field.”
The piece uses data and machine learning algorithms to create large-scale animated abstractions based on urban environments, nature and space.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Anadol said that Sphere has allowed his work to expand in new directions and take his video art to new heights.
The novelty of the field as an extraordinary artistic offering also opens the question: What are other ways in which architecture can produce unique canvases for digital art?
Converting a scaffold structure into an architectural installation
At the pavilion level, UNSTABLE’s Pixel Cloud transformed an ordinary scaffolding structure into a visually appealing multi-layered architectural installation in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Ústóvóllur Square is located in front of the Icelandic Parliament building, and was previously the scene of a series of protests in 2008 that led to an unprecedented change in government.
This architectural and digital installation has temporarily transformed this space into a site of reconciliation.
They created a fully immersive environment of light and sound using old scaffolding structures scattered throughout the city.
The structure is covered with a porous membrane made up of multiple layers of white mesh fabric. The membrane captures light falling on its surfaces.
While allowing it to pass through its porous openings, reaching its multiple layers and creating an environment of light and shadows within the structure.
Bird sculptures in Japan
In Japan, “Bird Dispersing in the Wind Sculptures” allow visitors to experience data collected on birds flying by in an ethereal way.
A giant installation in TeamLab’s gallery, “teamLab Botanical Garden Osaka,” depicts the constant dissipation of energy by flying birds and wind.
The movement is reflected in real time, creating a constantly changing work of art, and transforming the collected data into graphics displayed in the physical environment.
It allows visitors to view and understand the Botanical Garden in new ways.
The entire art space at TeamLab Botanical Garden Osaka interactively transforms in different ways at night, influenced by wind, rain, people and animals.