Moments in Time
Moments in Time is a permanent data sculpture developed by Phenomena Labs and installed within a public atrium at Science Park Towers in Jönköping, Sweden. The work is a 24-hour real-time visual and interactive experience displayed on a 17-meter-wide LED media wall containing 6.5 million pixels, reading local time, daylight hours, 28 live weather metrics, energy consumption, and building activity to render a continuously evolving visual field that shifts across the day, season, and rhythm of the site.
A custom Building Data API connects weather stations, energy sensors, and AI-driven computer vision cameras into a unified data pipeline. Weather stations feed 28 metrics including wind direction, speed, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. Building sensors report real-time energy use and foot traffic. The AI camera system tracks visitor movement and translates it into generative parameters. Each data stream controls layers of color, density, motion, and atmosphere, allowing the artwork to register the changing state of its environment rather than simply decorate it.
The installation unfolds across six chapters: Paint Brushes, where AI-driven cameras track visitor movement and translate it into real-time brush painting across five palettes inspired by Swedish artists; Dreams of Nature, a data sculpture generating dynamic moving vector fields driven by live wind data; Weather, a real-time weather forecast display rendering 47 atmospheric conditions across a full day-night cycle; Energy, which visualizes the building's energy consumption as a cascading waterfall of archeological data layers; Flowers, an interactive data sculpture where flowers respond to human movement and particles follow live wind patterns; and a sixth transitional chapter that bridges cycles through ambient data states.
The system is built on custom software, image processing pipelines, and TouchDesigner, running on dedicated hardware housed in an on-site server rack. 3D pre-visualization models guided architectural calibration before installation, ensuring the final output matched the spatial and luminance conditions of the atrium.
As a studio project, Moments in Time is a model for long-duration data-driven public art. It combines site research, sensor integration, generative software, AI computer vision, and architectural calibration into a system designed to evolve with the building over years of daily use. The project received a Webby Award for Best Community Engagement.
A custom Building Data API connects weather stations, energy sensors, and AI-driven computer vision cameras into a unified data pipeline. Each data stream controls layers of color, density, motion, and atmosphere, allowing the artwork to register the changing state of its environment rather than simply decorate it. Built on custom software, image processing pipelines, and TouchDesigner, running on dedicated on-site hardware.
As a studio project, Moments in Time is a model for long-duration data-driven public art. It combines site research, sensor integration, generative software, AI computer vision, and architectural calibration into a system designed to evolve with the building over years of daily use.