LENTICULAR CLOUD, Deloitte Headquarters, Amsterdam Geert Mul 2015
Lenticular Cloud is an art installation by media artist Geert Mul (1965) commissioned by Deloitte. This piece has been designed for the innovative ‘The Edge’ offices and its 34 hanging and rotating panels form a ‘cloud’ in the 50m high atrium. Lenticular Cloud is a kinetic installation in which different images emerge over the course of a day.
Geert Mul is inspired by the Database as a novel creative medium to generate meaning. Deloitte’s core business is processing information in innovative ways for which the Database is essential. From this, the concept of this installation formed: a combination of a ‘cloud’ as a visualization of a database while also forming a shape probing and sensing the cavernous space of the atrium.
The surface of each triangle is created using the ‘lenticular printing’ technique, best known for its use in postcards where the image changes when moving around the card.
Each of the 34 triangles contains 10 images that, thanks to lenticular printing, become visible from different angles. As a result, Lenticular Cloud creates a combinable visual database, offering an artwork with (34^{10} = 2,064,377,754,059,776) possible appearances.
Video: Making of the Cloud
- Lenticular Cloud’s triangles constantly rotate due to the ever-present draft in the building’s atrium. Each of the 34 triangles contains 10 images which, due to being lenticular prints, becomes visible under different angles.
- Using image analysis software, each image has been selected from a collection of 1.2 million random images taken from the internet.
- The shape of the ‘cloud’ has been designed using a 3D computer-simulation of a flock of 34 birds.
- Lenticular Cloud consists of 34 triangles measuring 240 x 170 x 170 cm. The ‘cloud’ extends a total volume of 20 x 20 x 15 cubic meters. The panels are suspended from a specially designed frame using a total of 1km of steel cable.
