Underpass intervention text work.......UNSEEN

Simone started the ball rolling with her concept of back lighting a pannel with the simple text unseen, which was to greet underpass traffic.  Being on a one way corner we have been enlightened to difficulties posed to road health and safety; cannot be a distraction to motorists, along with; anything bolted to bridge wall needs to be Valley proof (after all may look fab in someones loungeroom) and cannot be dangerous in any way (so who ever attempts to nick it will not sue you for damages after cutting off a finger on a sharp edge!  So we did all steer away from this site but after yet another sleepless night pondering such things I began to play again with text (new relm for me!)

With the actual word being an activator, what is unseen? the next run of ideas, explores the notion of the Unseen, again using the same text but by reducing the visual impact of the word, it begins to fade away....... which at a critical point the text work remains on a watershed of legibility and the obsure, which hopefully with successive re-reads an ahah ! is established.
Starting with just the work that in the following sequence becomes more degraded, the intention is to have text painted directly onto the clean concrete face of the wall, scale.... at least 75% of avaiable space.

1 to 3 based on dots reductive...




...same but in red to link to other elements in park.....


using a different technique that would also be painted on wall to scale....

...getting closer to nearly gone.  Another option could be paint with glow paint, thus charged during day and pops out at night, unseen - seen.  Doubtfull of the quality of such paints and would need to explore.  This application (if invisable paint)  would minimise a day reading and may not assist in drawing people into Kemp Place.



..more sketchy daytime reading below, but subtle...



Exploring different reflective materials, road signage pannels use a very reflective paint that works in all light levels.  The next image explores use of strips of varying widths to create the text, that during day reading would be closer to concrete tone and more invisable.  At night the contrast becomes more eveident suggested below...




The last image created a different approach and optical affect that I wish to explore; beautifully illustrated on the face of the BGGS by m3architects on the Inner City Bypass, Spring Hill.  The effect is a shimmering movement that is so simply acieived and I will attempt to outline visually the application to unseen text works to follow, again further using the unveiling concept.

With the underpass situation we will need to make the shimmer / animation less dramatic than the BGGS facade.  The motion would be in the same direction as traffic movement and alot less pulsy.  First a description of what you are looking at ...... the word unseen is defined by painting around tect on the concrete wall (image 3 in the following sequence).  A solid panel with random gaps is fixed approximately 300 to 400mm off the wall, matching in colour the text obscured beneath.  Looking at first glance like a bar code, a transitioning/moving viewing angle will allow differing sections of the unseen text to be revealed.  Although only a tiny % of the text can be seen, its this movement that triggers the brain to interpolate its meaning, so with a quick glance from a moving car the word becomes animated...... unfortunately still working on an animation for this!

Visual breakdown.....


the next image shows bar code panel layer which would be strips of alpolac or steel painted plate.....

next layer is the text....


The colour of the text and bar code panels can be matched to the concrete or complimentary colour, black  or simply white, the grub over time may even make it more obscure!



cad version showing black on red....


detail....

one more detail showing shadow and how this adds a further bar code dimension.