ALIVE

LOCATION // Coconut Grove Laundry and Cleaners. Miami, USA.

CLIENT // Coconut Grove Business Improvement District

YEAR // 2019

STATUS // Completed

PROGRAM  // Public Art

FUNCTION // Interactive Mural

We conceived this ongoing project with the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District  (CGBID) direction to integrate ubiquitous technology with public art to foster healthy and engaging public spaces that are user-oriented, incorporating mood science to transform daily experiences. The overall vision of these installations is to merge technological innovation, social and environmental resilience themes with public art and interaction design to reinvigorate public space as the living and breathing heart of the neighborhood, being ‘ALIVE.’ It is where innovation and beauty have a symbiotic relationship with its citizens and each other.

Studio James Brazil partnered with internationally acclaimed artist XENZ to transform the family-owned,1961-established Coconut Grove Laundry & Cleaners building on Grand Avenue into a digital art installation and new civic place.The mural is created by Xenz, painting landscapes from his imagination using spray to capture fragments of memories from the historic natural world of the neighborhood, Miami’s oldest. During the mural painting, we digitally augmented Xenz’s artwork into video projected animations that visitors will be able to interact with in person via various sensors installed on the building’s façade. 

The installation will evolve with the participation of visitors, a digital thumbprint/memory starts to be created between the neighborhood, public space, and its citizens. The project is an investigation of how the mood of the neighborhood through visitor’s biometrics (heart rate), sound, movement and/or environmental sensors) will interact with the mood of the installation, to create an immersive sensorial space.

We utilize the  Urban Prototyping Platform (UPP), a collection of real-time sensors, micro-controllers and web applications integrated with computer vision developed within the studio that allows visitors to interact with the mural by walking past it or touching it in person. “engaging the physical presence of locals and visitors coming to Coconut Grove, creating a new experience with each encounter,” said Nicole Singletary, executive director of the Coconut Grove BID. 

COLLABORATORS

Sinuhe Acosta | Oscar Bravo | James Brazil | Juan Rodriguez Garcia |  Rachel Markel | Nicole Singletary | Natasha Tomchin | Xenz