Cloud: “

London based Troika has been commissioned by Artwise Curators to create a signature piece at the entrance of the new British Airways luxury lounges in Heathrow Terminal 5.

‘In response, we created ‘Cloud’, a five meter long digital sculpture whose surface is covered with 4638 flip-dots that can be individually addressed by a computer to animate the entire skin of the sculpture. Flip-dots were conventionally used in the 70s and 80s to create signs in train-stations and airports. We were fascinated by their materiality, by the way they physically flip from one side to the other. The sound they generate is also instantly reminiscent of travel, and we therefore decided to explore their aesthetic potential in ‘Cloud’.’

The project took 8 months in development, manufacturing and installation. Troika was responsible for the concept, design, executive design and engineering, project, production and installation management, and over-viewing all the operations from start to finish.

Manufactured by Mike Smith Studio
Controls by Pharos Architectural Controls
Installation by Alternative Access

It is really fantastic and I recommend you watch the two videos here www.troika.uk.com/cloudvideos.htm

Troika also reveal a lot about the development process behind the project. It really was a gigantic undertaking.

I’m very impressed!

[update 1]

‘While Cloud was being assembled, we went on to create the animations. Since the shape is complex and the distribution of the dots is somehow atypical, we needed to create visualisation software to help us imagine what they would look like. The visualisation software has been programmed in-house in Processing, while the main control software was developed by the team at Pharos Controls’.

Troika have been kind enough to send me screenshots of this visualisation & allow me to publish them here and here

More posts on Troika:
Schizoporotica
Datasound
This happened #1

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(Via Pixelsumo.)