How to create the city of the future through data art

Open Highway and Solid Cinema show solutions for urban issues of the 21st century

Cultuurplein RAUM in Utrecht has two more data artworks. Open Highway, an impressive light installation that shows the stratification of the future city, and Solid Cinema, a static object that transforms into a 360° light spectacle through the movement of passers-by. The new art installations by design studio RNDR and artist Gosse de Kort are the result of an open call by RAUM. Both creations show an alternative view on urban issues of the 21st century.

Open Highway
Open Highway is a real-time light installation on the Berlin Square in Utrecht. Developed by the Dutch design studio RNDR, it mimics the cars driving on the A2 highway at that moment based on public data. A highway that is (literally) under the Berlin Square. The data to simulate the vehicles comes from the National Database of Road Traffic Data, which measures the speed and amount of traffic passing through the Leidsche Rijn tunnel every day.

With the work, RNDR shows that the future of the city is literally layered: infrastructure is ‘tucked away’ to make way for new urban districts. When Leidsche Rijn is completed in 2030, it will be home to about 110,000 people. The Berlijnplein and Leidsche Rijn Centrum exist by the grace of the tunnel over the A2. The tunnel ensures that the Leidsche Rijn district is one entity, free from the nuisance of cars on the highway, and connects the area with the rest of the city. Open Highway reveals the hidden highway, the first layer in the new history of this neighborhood. It offers a glimpse into a future where infrastructure no longer plays the dominant role we know it does in the present day. Open Highway is thus a visual translation of how infrastructure and data are at the service of citizens.

The work consists of fourteen red and white light bars, each eleven meters long. The shape and placement correspond exactly to two times three lanes. Seven red light bars represent the cars heading towards Den Bosch and seven white lights towards Amsterdam. The artwork has a surface area of roughly 30 x 40 meters – the scale is 1:1 – exactly the same size as the underlying A2. In each light segment a so-called linear actuator is installed, which simultaneously gives a physical “tap” on the metal of the light bars. The result is that the sound moves in space, parallel to the light. The sound is reminiscent of vehicles driving over the road markings on the highway. Spectators can walk through the lights and freely explore the space. In the nearby RAUM pavilion hangs a large screen that shows real-time traffic data with detailed speeds and the total capacity of the highway.

Solid Cinema
Traditionally, architecture is considered static; after all, a building usually stands still. But not if it’s up to Dutch artist Gosse de Kort. “When you walk through a building, your experience of the building changes continuously while the building remains the same,” says de Kort. He has translated this vision into Solid Cinema, his light installation that now stands on the grounds of RAUM. The solid artwork consists of 1600 unique “pixels” that are visible only in specific directions through 3D printed fixtures, allowing the image to change from any angle and distance. People who ride past the artwork in the bus experience something different than the people who walk past the artwork. Something we are also confronted with in our daily lives. The way we move affects what we perceive and how we see the world.

To create this work requires data, 3D printing technology, complex software and computational time. So on a technical level, creating Solid Cinema was a challenge. After analyzing the use of the environment, different light images were assigned to 40 “positions” in the space. These light images were then converted to cutouts in the luminaires surrounding the pixels. In total, this yielded 1600 unique 3D printed luminaires, each different in shape and lighting. Too complicated a process to perform by hand, so de Kort developed parametric software in collaboration with programmer Gerard Petersen.

The special thing about this software is that it can also be used for practical purposes in the future. Think of (a form of) signaling that can display different messages depending on the angle at which you look at it. A targeted way of providing information that prevents unnecessary light pollution in the environment and can also be combined with an experience component. With Solid Cinema, Gosse de Kort puts the importance of art for science on the map.

Open call RAUM
Once or twice a year, RAUM calls on artists, designers and architects to tackle the challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s wicked problems. RAUM invites them to think about their current and future living environment, the way we want to live together and how we can and want to shape it. Inspired by one of RAUM’s artistic themes – encounter, ownership and data – the Makers in Residence come up with a project or work that will be developed and executed in residence at RAUM.