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Photo: Dirk Engelhardt

06 October 2006

DingDotz LED fixtures for the facade of an Austrian bank

More and more media facades are beeing realised using techniques that allow the building's occupants to see out and daylight to enter.
At nighttime the whole first floor of the Raiffeisen Bank in Hollabrunn near Vienna becomes a digital LED screen running the bank's branding and promotions, or any other effect or animation. A light sensor turns the system on and off automatically, according to light levels. LEDs magazine describes the detailed construction and technique.

permalink posted by Mirjam 23:18

URBAN SCREENS investigates how the currently commercial use of outdoor screens can be broadened with cultural content. We address cultural fields as digital media culture, urbanism, architecture and art. We want to network and sensitise all engaged parties for the possibilities of using the digital infrastructure for contributing to a lively urban society, binding the screens more to the communal context of the space and therefore creating local identity and engagement. The integration of the current information technologies support the development of a new integrated digital layer of the city in a complex merge of material and immaterial space that redefine the function of this growing infrastructure.

Definition of Urban Screens

URBAN SCREENS defined as various kinds of dynamic digital displays and interfaces in urban space such as LED signs, plasma screens, projection boards, information terminals but also intelligent architectural surfaces being used in consideration of a well ballanced, sustainable urban society - Screens that support the idea of public space as space for creation and exchange of culture, strengthening a local economy and the formation of public sphere. Its digital nature makes these screening platforms an experimental visualisation zone on the threshold of virtual and urban public space.
(Mirjam Struppek)

Short history of Urban Screens

In January 2004, during the international Media Art Festival Transmediale Mirjam Struppek did a questionnaire for the Artgroup [STRICTLY PUBLIC], researching about the outcome of their one month video art screening on the largest outdoor LED screen in Berlin, looking at the impact on the passers by. Later in 2004 the Institute of Network Cultures and the Department of Art in Public space, Amsterdam approached Mirjam Struppek, to develop a research agenda for a conference, preparing the launch of the permanent video screen installation for cultural programming at the Zuidplein, heart of a new urban development area in Amsterdam. Mirjam Struppek developed a concept named "Urban Screens" and curated this first conference about "discovering the potential of outdoor screens for urban society" in September 2005. According to the large success of the event she developed an extended concept, including conferences, exhibitions, outdoor screenings and international joint broadcasting and an online information platform for networking. She is initiator of this challenging series of worldwide Urban Screens events, to support a growing community and an emerging Urban Screens movement