The company behind the electronic ink display found in the Amazon Kindle has used the same technology to power 2,000 individual solar-powered titles along the 1,600-feet-long facade of an Diego International Airport. Dazzle is a giant public programmable art installation featuring more than 15 custom animations created by artists.
Dazzle will be viewed daily by hundreds of thousands of airport visitors, motorists on the Interstate 5 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway, and public transit users.
Experiential design form Ueberall International designed the site-specific artwork with inspiration from Norman Wilkinson’s 'razzle dazzle' camouflage technique used during World War I in the waters of San Diego to alter the perception of ships to the enemy by visually scrambling their shapes and outlines. The artwork is site-specific, as it responds to the faceted geometry of the building architecture.
The physical components of Dazzle include e-Paper tiles, wireless transmitters and a host computer. The e-Paper tiles are designed in a parallelogram shape and arranged in algorithmic distances to create an overall dynamic visual effect, even when the pixels are still. Each tile is integrated with a solar cell for power, electronics for operation and wireless communication to create each unique animation developed by the artists. The animations can evoke water ripples, moving traffic, dancing snowflakes or shifting geometries.