Electric Works is thrilled to have printed the panels for Marcia Stuermer’s much awaited art commission for the Sacramento International Airport that will be unveiled to the public October 2011. This installation is a fine example of our consultation and production services for large-scale projects such as this. The suspended and backlit ceiling 16’ x 52’ is located in the high security baggage claim area of the new International Terminal and will embody the archetypical notion of travel with dreamy, translucent imagery of migrating birds soaring overhead that appear to be X-rayed along with traveler’s baggage.
Stuermer chose to use the imagery of Sandhill Cranes inspired by the fact that the Sacramento Central Valley is located in the middle of the Pacific Flyway zone where these migratory birds have traveled their twice yearly route between Alaska and Patagonia for centuries.
The ceiling inset is composed of 26 translucent acrylic panels in a watery blue-green simultaneously simulating sky and water that are backlit via a programmed, energy-efficient LED system and installed as a single visual field flush with and within the maple veneer perimeter of the existing acoustic ceiling panels in International Arrivals area. Stuermer digitally composed and manipulated the foreground imagery of a flock of Sandhill Cranes in flight, which were then printed on clear film with archival pigmented inks on our Epson 11880. The flock is visually oriented to be traveling away from the baggage claim area, providing a subliminal way-finding mechanism to the weary traveler as well as echoing the intended flow pattern within the airport space. This ‘flow’ will be subtly enhanced by the programming of the LED lighting that will simulate movement of the dreamlike water background from one end of the installation to the other.
With no two images alike, each crane image is a high-contrast, digitally created photographic composite of both the crane’s body and skeleton in flight that playfully and conceptually mimics the x-ray scanning of baggage as well as depicting the subtle discovery of underlying layers of information, meaning and structure in our world.
For project inquiries, please email Kris Lang, kris@sfelectricworks.com
or phone 415-626-5496.
