Four Stories, Minneapolis Public Library (2006)
Four Stories is one of several, permanent public artworks commissioned by the city of Minneapolis for the new, main public library building. Built into the structure of the two glass elevator cabs in Library Hall, Four Stories displays the titles of recently checked-out, reshelved, or searched titles in the online catalog, in large, illuminated text as the elevators move between floors. Letters are formed with a combination of red, green, and blue LEDs. This text is visible from much of the Library Hall.
Dimensions: two panels, each 48 inches by 90 inches
Media/Technology: Addressable LED tube fixtures, laser range finders, and custom software
Credits: Custom software by Small Design Firm
Listening Post (2001-2003), Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin
Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens. Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it’s own data processing logic. Dissociating the communication from its conventional on-screen presence, Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication.
Dimensions: 21 feet by 10 feet by 3 feet
Media/Technology: Vacuum-fluorescent displays, custom software and electronics
Credits: Engineering and fabrication by Will Pickering/Parallel Development
San Jose Semaphore (2006)
San Jose Semaphore is a permanent public artwork commissioned by Adobe Systems Inc. in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affair’s Public Art Program. Located within the top floors of Adobe’s Almaden Tower headquarters in San Jose, California, San Jose Semaphore is a multi-sensory kinetic artwork that illuminates the San Jose skyline with the transmission of message encoded in illuminated moving symbols and in sounds. The content of the San Jose Semaphore’s message is a mystery; cracking the encryption technique and deciphering the message is posed as a challenge for the public.
Dimensions: four discs, each 10 feet by 10 feet
Media/Technology: 24,000 Luxeon LED emitters, custom electronics and software
Credits: Engineering and fabrication by Will Pickering/Parallel Development
Sandstorm (2006)
This piece scans four times across a wire-service photograph from March 25, 2003, about one week after the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The photo caption reads: “A sandstorm hit the center of Baghdad, which was already ringed with plumes of thick smoke billowing from burning oil trenches.”
Dimensions: 39 inches by 74 inches
Media/Technology: LEDs, acrylic, aluminum, electronics
Two Lanes: Bowery between Grand & Hester, March 2, 2006, (2006)
This piece translates video footage of two-way street traffic into two vertical lines of LED light. The roofs of cars, trucks, busses, and taxis are visible as colored segments moving up or down the lines. The video was shot from the roof of Rubin’s studio on a rainy, snowy afternoon. Traffic was light, and moving easily that day.
Dimensions: 84 inches by 7 inches
Media/Technology: LEDs, acrylic, aluminum, electronics
Story Pipeline (2002)
In the BPEC community center in Anchorage, Alaska, stories told by Alaskans appear on a plasma video screen and simultaneously emerge as real-time text transcriptions on a 150-foot-long LED display. The text zig-zags indoors down a glass corridor, then veers out through the plate glass, dancing between the trees until it disappears out of sight.
Dimensions: approximately 150-feet-long by 6-feet-tall
Media/Technology: LED text and plasma video displays, video projection, audio
Credits: Original design by Ben Rubin/EAR Studio in collaboration with Robin Sylvestri, Cecile Bouchier, Bill Ballou, Alexis Kraft, Bruce Williams, Ron Bateman and the architects of Koonce, Pfeffer, Bettis, Anchroage, Alaska. Installation fabrication and video production by Batwin+Robin productions. LED sign by Sunrise Systems. Audiovisual installation and programming by Scharff Weisberg.
