Virtual Depictions

source: vimeo

‘Virtual Depictions:San Francisco’ is a public art project by media artist Refik Anadol consist of series of parametric data sculptures that tell the story of the city and people around us within a unique artistic approach for 350 Mission’s media wall in collaboration with Kilroy Realty Corporation / John Kilroy and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP Architects.
The main idea of ‘Virtual Depictions:San Francisco’ is to bring 21st century approach to public art to define new poetics of space through media arts and architecture and to create a unique parametric data sculptures that has an intelligence, memory and culture. Through architectural transformations of media wall located in 350 Mission’ lobby, home of Salesforce, main motivation with this seminal media architecture approach is to frame this experience with a meticulously abstract and cinematic site-specific data-driven narration. As a result, this media wall turns into a spectacular public event making direct and phantasmagorical connections to its surroundings through simultaneous juxtapositions. The project also intends to contribute to contemporary discourse of public art by proposing a hybrid blend of media arts and architecture in 21st century.
When creating this public artwork my goal was to make the invisible visible by embedding media arts into architecture to create a new way to experience a living urban space.

Medium: 6mm LED Media Wall
Dimensions: 20′ x 40′
Custom Software (VVVV), 90 minutes long dynamic visual experience in 12 chapters.
8 Channel sound.
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source: creativeapplicationsnet

Created by Refik Anadol in collaboration with Kilroy Realty Corporation and SOM Architects, Virtual Depictions: San Francisco is cinematic and site-specific data-driven sculpture consisting of 90 minutes long dynamic visuals projected in the building lobby’s 40-foot-tall screen and visible from the street.

Main motivation with the project is to frame the experience with a meticulously abstract and cinematic site-specific data-driven narration. This media wall turns into a public event making phantasmagorical connections to its surroundings through carefully coordinated imagery. From particle trails, fluid simulation, fractal landscapes to geometric compositions and point cloud fly-throughs, the 12 different chapters animate the streetscape as much as the building.

For example for the social network sculpture, the team built custom vvvv realtime system that traces down all the tweets which have been sent in San Francisco (geotagged) and maps them on a 3d pointcloud-representation of San Francisco. Every Tweet emits particles and is contributing to a heatmap. This heatmap displaces and colors the 6 milliion particles to form the datascape.

For more about the project by visitng the links below. Virtual Depictions: San Francisco is a public art commission located at the 350 Mission Building in City of San Francisco, California.
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source: vimeo

Refik Anadol is a media artist, director and designer born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1985. Currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
He is an emerging artist working in the fields of live audio/visual performance, site-specific immersive installation and parametric sculpture, particularly his works explore the space among digital and physical entities by creating a hybrid relationship between architecture and media arts. He holds a master of fine arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles in Media Arts, master of fine arts degree from Istanbul Bilgi University in Visual Communication Design as well as bachelors of arts degree with summa cum laude in Photography and Video. Co-founder and Creative director at Antilop.
He has been awarded numerous honours, awards, residencies and has served as a guest lecturer. His site-specific audio/visual performances have been seen in Walt Disney Concert Hall (USA), International Digital Arts Biennial Montreal (Canada), Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), l’Usine | Genève (Switzerland), Arc De Triomf (Spain), Zollverein | SANAA’s School of Design Building (Germany), santralistanbul Contemporary Art Center (Turkey), Outdoor Vision Festival SantaFe New Mexico (USA), Istanbul Design Biennial (Turkey), Sydney (Australia), Lichtrouten (Germany).