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Architext

Jeffrey Shaw
1992

Large LED alphanumeric units are mounted in a 13 x 9 grid on the stage tower of this theater. Like a conventional news sign textual information is scrolled through these elements, but because the alphanumeric units are spaced far apart, the projected information becomes abstracted into a more complex image - it generates a patterning of fragments of words and sentences that appear to weave in and out of the wall of the building. The theater users interactively program this sign, taking titles and texts from performances that are being presented in the theater. Thus the sculpture radiates fragments of texts from the current stage production to the viewers outside, and from a great distance draws attention and makes the building porous to a transfer of information from inside out.

A 20m high column on the Europaweg at one of main highway entrances to inner Zoetermeer carries another vertical group of 9 cylindrical LED alphanameric units with rotating texts that signpost a transition from the highway lighting into the cultural discourse embodied in Stadstheater display.

Credits:

Hardware and Software: Novamatic, Eich, Germany

Images