People are returning to their most favored outdoor, and indoor, spaces, and that includes the city streets for many as well. With this return, that means the AV installations are starting to pop-up with eye-catching visuals. And coincidentally, a recently wrapped up public art display on smart LED signage in New York City’s Times Square highlighted this spectacular immersiveness through the biophilic subject of water.
In partnership with Seoul-based design firm d’strict, Samsung unveiled the massive digital art installation featuring waterfall and ocean visuals that ran from July 27 to Aug. 2 to showcase the art potential of digital signage, specifically using Samsung’s SMART signage platform.
“The cascading water takes full advantage of the signage’s vertical structure, delivering an immersive and compelling visual experience,” a Samsung news release said. “Images are displayed at the industry’s highest peak brightness, 9,000 nits, ensuring that the artwork remains vivid even in direct sunlight.”
Composed of four vertical screens that measure more than 11,600-square-feet, the installation is certainly able to play the part, outshining even some naturally occurring waterfalls. But the LEDs used aren’t new to Times Square. According to Samsung, the installation was completed at 25-story One Times Square in May 2019 with the help of its subsidiary PRISMVIEW.
Showcasing the Power of Digital Art
Part of an initiative announced last September, the waterfall is just a part of the overall plan for Samsung and d’strict, with cutting edge digital displays and public media projects planned for global landmarks, like Times Square and the Duomo Cathedral in Milan all around the world.
Just recently in May 2020 the duo unveiled a giant 3D wave design on Samsung’s SMART LED signage and the largest curved screen in Korea on the SMTown COEX building in Seoul’s Gangnam district, the city’s main business district.
The screen – four times the size of a basketball court with a total surface area of 1620 square meters, took seven months to install in 2017 and 2018. It was the first digital signage display in Korea that utilizes two sides of an outdoor advertisement space. D’strict’s 3D wave design appeared on the display in May 2020.
With the ability to utilize such massive, moldable canvases in digital art, it is certainly refreshing to see them being used to bring more natural elements into city life. The choice of water as the subject in both designs so far, is also refreshing, contributing a wonderful, relaxing visual to these bustling, often chaotic city spaces. With more on the way, we can only wait and see what the partnership brings next.
Another version of this article previously appeared in Commercial Integrator.
