Client: Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport

Overview

MOSAIC is a 240’ luminous LED “linear clock” that follows a visual logic interpreting the color spectrum as a one-hour time cycle. Colors slowly morph and change over each hour cycle in tune with the associated “time-color” dominant at each minute. A major motion event of recalibrating colors marks each hour. Travelers in the concourse below see the artwork as a large flat display, while travelers in the arrivals corridor above experience it as being bathed in an immersive corridor of colored light.

Goals

This project is unique in that it has two sides that perform different roles. From the concourse level it appears as a long flat linear display of colored light, a "linear clock" that acknowledges that public transportation spaces have always prominently displayed clocks. However, in the arrivals corridor above it performs as an immersive colored walkway, bathing arriving visitors in complex patterns of colored light. Both sides effectively provide a unique brand and identity to Terminal 4, making it instantly different from any other airport terminal in the world.

Process

This project was conceived and executed over the span of ten years. The artists worked with the architects, county arts officials and airport representatives to install the necessary infrastructure during construction, and then everyone offered helpful comments and were very supportive as the artists introduced variations and improved the design over the subsequent years.