ORBITAL – circular flip dot sculpture

Client Volkswagen / Autostadt  Year 2015  City Wolfsburg, Germany

With almost 180.000 mechanical platelets, so-called flip dots, which rotate by an electromagnetic pulse, ORBITAL is the largest flip dot installation in the world. The kinetic sculpture was designed and developed by WHITEvoid specifically for the customer center of Volkswagens Autostadt (car city) in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Originally used for airports and railway stations, the analog flip dot technology is reminiscent of the early seventies, a time when traveling was still an adventure. The ORBITAL installation provides a similar experience, being sculpture, information carrier and media artwork at the same time. The visitors receive pick up information for their new car and simultaneously follow the play of the animated tiles to pass the waiting time. Ornaments and structures move in sync to disintegrate shortly thereafter. The resulting mechanical clicking acts as an almost symphonic sound bed and announces content updates to the display.

All this is made possible by advanced computerized control technology, which is located inside the rings. With a diameter of 9 meters ORBITAL is also the world’s first double-sided curved flip dot board. Even if a single flip dot weighs considerably less than one gram, the whole installation has a total weight of 3 tons.

Concept, Art Direction & Design
WHITEvoid, Christopher Bauder

Conception & Management
POLYPHON

Software Development
Checksum5 / WHITEvoid

Execution
porcella + morgan
MaWa Design

Photos
WHITEvoid

Video
POLYPHON

Read MoreRead Less

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.