Display Your Face on a 14-Foot LED Head

When you visit certain cities, you may go out of your way to see a particular piece of public art, such as Chicago’s “Bean,” (officially the “Cloud Gate”) or the “Charging Bull” in New York’s Financial District. Now, if you find yourself in Columbus, Ohio, you can check out Matthew Mohr Studios’ “As We Are” installation at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

The 14-foot-tall interactive sculpture, shaped in the form of a human head, is equipped with ribbons of ultra-bright screens that project visitors’ faces using 850,000 individual LEDs.

To get started, participants are invited to sit inside a specialized photo booth at the back the installation, which consists of 29 Raspberry Pi cameras that take simultaneous pictures to create the 3D composite image. This model is then displayed on the giant head for others to see.

As We Are can store up to 100,000 selfies locally and even more in the cloud, continuously rotating the portraits to get an even distribution of skin tones.

The sculpture addresses the relationship between self and representation of self, asking the subject of the portrait to reconsider presence through magnification. It is intended to provide amusement and evoke larger discussions around the phenomena of social media, diversity, and the power dynamic of public art.

While it looks interesting via the Internet, it must be spectacular in person and a great reason to visit Ohio’s capital city. You can also find more information on the art piece here.