Virtual Depictions: San Francisco

The 350 Mission video artwork, Virtual Depictions: San Francisco was commissioned by Kilroy and created by Refik Anadol, who is a media artist exploring the convergence of interactive media and architecture. Anadol is also an instructor and visiting scholar for the Design Media Arts Department at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Anadol noted that the creation of Virtual Depictions is site specific and designed to conform to the space where it is exhibited. Thus the same digital exhibit could appear differently in different spaces.

The significance of Virtual Depictions is that it's not a static artwork or an abstract graphic or a slideshow of amazing fantastic realism landscapes. Virtual Depictions is a living, breathing data sculpture that as Anadol notes, "is driven by specific segments of information or data sets that are constantly transforming the displays images and creating what he describes as “data sculptures.”

The data that drives the sculptures come from the city's ambient surroundings including Environmental, Social Media and Post-Architectural influences." Anadol's data sculptures are defined by the use of parametric analytics which is a design process that creates a visual relationship between the data it is measuring and the visualization that represents the data.

These interactions that swirl around the city are captured by Virtual Depiction’s data engines and form a continuous data sculpture that presents its data visualizations as an art experience. People are so awed by its potential noted Anadol that they are visiting Virtual Depictions from all over the Bay Area to see and connect with its interpretative visualization of San Francisco's interactive communications.”

DeeDee Postil, Kilroy's art curator noted that because the content is in a real-time relationship with all the data that shapes its visualizations, it is always changing, and what viewers see as they watch Virtual Depictions may not be the same in their second visit to the display. Already it has earned the SEGD Global Design Award.