An interactive LED sculpture by Columbus College of Art & Design Advertising & Graphic Design Associate Professor Matthew Mohr will be the centerpiece to the entrance of the newly renovated Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Through a practice that focuses on communication with physical/digital interaction to create large-scale experiences, Matthew Mohr looks for a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion in everyday moments normally considered inconsequential, magnifying them to reflect humanistic ideals.
His visual language is heavily influenced by design in all forms and regard for simplicity. By inviting all to participate, Mohr asks through interaction with his art, to reconsider a common moment as an opportunity to explore several facets of it.
The sculpture is currently installed in the Greater Columbus Convention Center, a public venue primed for eager visitors who wish to see their faces projected more than two times their height. Its appearance reflects a few other body-centric public sculptures, namely David Cerny’s banded replication of Franz Kafka’s head in Prague, and Chicago’s Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa which also displays a rotating cast of faces across a series of LED screens.
“As We Are” presents Columbus as a welcoming, diverse culture where visitors and residents can engage on multiple levels through an interactive experience with public art.
To participate, you walk through the back of the skull to take your photo in a selfie booth. In the small room, a total of 29 cameras take a snapshot in unison from every conceivable angle. Then, software stitches those photos into your very own 3D head and projects it onto the exterior of the installation, which uses ribbons of curved LCD screens to approximate your full, 3D visage.
