Airport art that's super trippy
A gallery dedicated to toilets? A robot repair shop? Is it us, or has airport art gotten decidedly trippy?
Then again, there are worse ways to spend a layover. We've curated some of the most inventive art currently on display at the airport.
Even fliers who don't currently have a retro robot on the fritz will appreciate the robot repair shop recently installed at Pittsburgh International Airport. The art installation was the brainchild of Toby Fraley, who won a public art award for a similar exhibit in an empty Pittsburgh storefront. A self-professed "aviation junkie," he approached the local airport authority about relocating.
"I think it's always more exciting to see a piece of great art, as opposed to yet another book shop or fast food restaurant. Those are the only other entities breaking up the monotony between the identical gates," he says.
The new shop is three times the size of the original, and is full of quirky little details that are sure to entertain passengers with time to kill. At Tom Bradley International Terminal, the walls have eyes - or that's how it can feel thanks to Los Angeles Airport's collaboration with Montreal-headquartered media studio Moment Factory.
Among the seven multimedia features are a set of ten 8.5-meter walls that respond to passenger movements, unleashing surreal videos of dripping water or flipping tiles.
The 22-meter Time Tower is the crux of what is the largest interactive multimedia exhibition in any American airport. The walls of the clock regularly break out in animations that mimic dancers operating the mechanics inside the timepiece. The exhibit "was designed to provide a calming way to entertain and enhance the passenger experience visually and emotionally," says LAX spokeswoman Mary Grady. 1,216 hollow, bronze droplets make up the 74-square-meter moving sculpture beloved by many traveling through Singapore.
The drops move in harmony, like a ballet troupe, to form a range of 3D shapes, including an airplane, a hot-air balloon -- even a dragon.