Rain, Rain Go Away – Sculpture Expresses Weather Patterns
Cloudy skies bring to mind images of open spaces, soaring objects and unlimited imagination when interpreting their organic forms. Changes in natural cloud patterns occur rather slowly, marking the passage of time over the course of the day. In this project, the form and psychological implications of clouds, altered by a speedier manipulation of time, provide an anchor of connectivity for a busy airport space.
The eCloud (designed by Aaron Koblin, Nik Hafermas, and Dan Goods) is a sculptural installation suspended from the ceiling of the San Jose airport. The animated sculpture, composed of thousands of LCD pixels in laminated plexiglass, interacts with weather data to animate the pixels. With liquid crystal technology and electric switching, each small square panel transforms as an individual pixel in the composition, slowly changing from opaque to transparent according to weather patterns at various airports across the world.
eCLOUD from Dan Goods on Vimeo.
With its sheer scale, the element of time, and manipulation by outside data, the eCloud is an ensemble of surface, technology, controls – an impressive work of art that celebrates both the local specificity and global universality of cloud forms.