I-grid is a design performance commissioned by CBS Outdoor and the Hollywood Art Council. Recently displayed at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Olive Drive in West Hollywood, I-grid’s computed protocol suggests the transformation of an existing billboard into manifold morphologies.

With its installation I-grid, Open Source Architecture questioned the nature of the billboard as an urban device that typically aims to communicate a message. The project rapidly became an opportunity to develop a critical observation on the status of representation in the realm of technology and the ever-increasing expansion of information networks. With I-grid, representation results from a bi-directional movement between data and image, code and observation.

Based on its initial format, a billboard located on Sunset Boulevard was divided into a 2 dimensional grid were each node was assigned with specific parametric behaviors corresponding to the structural characteristic of its existing structure.

By using a stochastic (pseudo-random) algorithm, the billboard format got reconfigured into manifold iterations, each transforming the original format into a drape. As a result, the initial rigidity of the billboard got transformed into a soft body.

The produced composite images of the various movements aimed at establishing an image that would communicate the transformation from the initial grid to an n-dimensional information grid. This experiment was then reiterated on the basis of vectors rather than surfaces as a way to emphasize the movement from the idealistic model to the statistic object. The final image was produced on the basis of a color code where each and every iteration could be identified while composing the overall system.

Thus, the striking feature of this project rests on its tremendous movement of decompression of information. As we finalized our proposal, we sent the vectorized image to the manufacturer. This file sent via e-mail was barely 2MB. The manufacturer decompressed this very condensed information package into a 50 feet height image. This movement of decompression is of course imperceptible to the viewer yet represents an integrated part of the experiment and discourse.

I-grid features a new form of interactivity stimulated by information streams that are intensified (compression) across multiple virtual computing grids and extended (decompression) on the physical surface. Information here becomes a unique vector that blurs the conventional dialectics between private and public realms, computers and the city. Instead, it suggests the formation of an info-engineered organism where information proposes nothing more than abstraction, an abstract space of interaction.

Client: City of West Hollywood
Location: Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, California
Design: 2007
Installation: 2007

Design Team: Open Source Architecture

The I-grid project was made possible with generous support from the City of West Hollywood and CBS OutdoorWest Hollywood’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission as well as the MAK Center, Los Angeles.