having participated in two previous editions of street theater festival ‘imaginarius’, portuguese art collective moradavaga has been invited to create a site-specific public art piece with its signature interactive attributes that honor local football club centennial while at the same time engage the public in an urban-scale communication game. inspired by old posters and information boards used in sports, the studio has created ‘flip-it’, an interactive analogical pixel screen that can be used to display graphical messages like typography, patterns or simple icons on the main façade of the stadium.
like the football club’s history itself, bridging different eras, flip-it integrates into its conception a visual grammar based on a grid, common to both century old techniques as portuguese pavement or traditional ceramic tiled façades, and modern electronic displays or digital screens.
general view of the analogical pixel panel
moradavaga’s panel with 11.00 by 2.80 meters was assembled with 2500 independent square pixels 10 centimeters-long sides, distributed by 100 columns of 25 pieces each in reference to the institution’s one-hundredth anniversary, fabricated as custom-made plastic boxes with two sides: white and blue in agreement with the club’s identity. this interface acts as a new tool of communication between the club, the fans and the city, one in which everyone is able to leave their messages in an ever-changing and evolving urban dialogue.
passersby interacting with the piece
citizen leaving a message on the interactive billboard
detail showing the interactive façade’s binary rotative elements
perspective view of the grid like surface
frontal view with the textured effect produced by sun light
writing on the wall
partial view of the piece with low-case font example at sunset
witty pun message related to sports jargon
official club announcement
front elevation illustration
technical drawing of the modular pixel-like element
project info:
project type: interactive installation
location: santa maria da feira, portugal
date: may 2018 – may 2019
collaboration: joão dias-oliveira
commissioned by: município de santa maria da feira
structure: radical e positivo, lda.
pixels: inducorte – indústria de cortantes, lda. (mold) and vancal, lda. (injection)
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: maria erman | designboom
