Schroders Art Installation

• Category
  Bespoke Art Commission
• Completion
  2007
• Artists
  Langlands & Bell | UK
• Designer
  Neon Circus | UK

Artists Ben Langlands & Nikki Bell explore the complex web of relationships, linking people, architecture, and the coded systems of mass-communications and exchange we use to negotiate an increasingly fast changing technological world. In this particular project, they were commissioned by the Brisitsh multinational asset management company Schroders plc, to produce a new art installation for the lobby of the newly refurbished London HQ, Gresham Street.

Using its expertise in custom LED and video technology, WiboWorks helped create a dynamic work of art at the banks HQ in London, England. The artwork involves a large video display custom-built from stainless steel panels embedded with 4,800 of KiboWorks highly adaptable X16 Dotz RGB LEDs that acted as pixels.There are 12 custom-built, one-meter-square mirrored panels which together form a 4 meter x 3 meter video display fixed to a secure, specially manufactured frame. The screen displays graphics based on letters that slowly change throughout the day under computer control.

The modular video screens are designed to be portable so that the artwork can be toured to other branches of the corporation worldwide. A single, floor-standing computer rack houses the master computer, power and data distribution nodes, fuse racks and surge protection. At the London branch, it is located in an audio-visual room 15 meters from the reception. The artist´s content runs on a daily schedule, and the screen brightness is controlled using a light sensor that detects ambient light in the lobby and adjusts it accordingly. The complete system was installed in just half a day on a Sunday, including approval and sign-off by bank directors and the architect: a testimony to KiboWorks project management skills.