Allan Toft
| Bix, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 2003 |
Bix, a communicative lighting display integrated into the biomorphic plexiglass skin of Colin Fournier and Peter Cook’s Kunsthaus Graz, delivers a Space Age effect with the most quotidian of luminaires. Realities: United installed a matrix of 930 conventional circular fluorescent light tubes behind the building’s east façade. A control system adjusts the brightness of each lamp at a frequency of 18 frames per second, making it possible to project images, films, and animations. A relatively low-tech project with a huge impact, Bix was one of the first large-scale media façades that dared to imagine that a building’s walls could be more than just a separation between interior and exterior, and that light could be used for more than merely illumination, but also as a form of communication.