Ivan Toth Depeña’s light-based installation Reflect elaborates on the idea of time and memory in public space.
It is to be permanently installed in the Stephen Clark Government Center Lobby in Miami in late August 2011, a main stop in Miami’s MetroRail system, The space serves as a hub for commuters and Depeña uses sensors and light to focus on the communal nature and circulatory qualities of the lobby. The work will engage the building’s visitors and through various means of reflection, group interactivity and high-tech playfulness.
The basis of the project will be custom designed LED light boxes placed at specific locations throughout the lobby space. These light boxes will interact and respond to the commuter’s movement and gesture via camera tracking, creating an energetic and vibrant artwork. Passers-by will have their images captured by several infrared cameras; the installation’s software will then abstract that image in real time, displaying this abstraction on the light covered like an ethereal mirror.
The colourful lights of the installation will engage those beyond the lobby—as some columns face the public plaza—and the installation will remain functioning even when there are no active participants, as the lightboxes retain the “memory” of users’ interactivity. Sensitive enough to detect the difference between multiple and single users, the system will vary the output and scale of the display to the number of visitors, and the hues will change according to the time of day.
Ivan Toth Depeña is an artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, NY and Miami, Florida. With a Masters Degree in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design Ivan’s studio practice is based on his multi-disciplinary approach to envisioning work.
Commissioned by the Miami-Dade Art in Public Places initiative.
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