FLIPPIN' DOTS
Flip dots. The sound of travel. The sight of travel, too. Or at least the sight of travelling. They are the little mechanical pieces that form, or rather formed, the majority of airport and train station departure screens around the world. You will have seen them in action, when the whole screen you’re looking at decides to reorganise itself and flicker like water lit by the moon before it settles back into its more mundane role of information display. Their digital cousins are moving in, though. The age of flip dot is no more.
But we still associate the technology with the spaces of travel. That’s why Troika, the Russian art collective with studios in London, chose to use it for the new installation in the atrium hall at Terminal 5, Heathrow, entitled Cloud. Prepare to be mesmerised:
But we still associate the technology with the spaces of travel. That’s why Troika, the Russian art collective with studios in London, chose to use it for the new installation in the atrium hall at Terminal 5, Heathrow, entitled Cloud. Prepare to be mesmerised:
Lovely. Kinda similair to alot of the stuff that UVA the lighting specialists do. All use dots, but light dots. LEDs.
I just had a bit of a thought. Do you think they use electro magnetic charge to make the little 'pixels' move in their spring loaded housing?
Super Fred, here's a little explanation of how it works from Troika themselves:
"We created for them ‘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."
those darn computers again