Chanel Media Installation
Project Vision
Inspired by Karl Lagerfeld’s new urban architecture and graffiti campaign, expressed in his downtown New York photographs, Chanel’s new SoHo store was wrapped with a “Wall of Light” as part of a three-day celebration of the city and the launch of the new Chanel store design in New York City.
Apologue (Los Angeles) designed a porous 140-ft.-wide by 10-ft.-high, L-shaped LED canvas and hired United Visual Artists (London) to collaborate on developing generative animations for Lagerfeld’s urban photography.
Seamlessly embedded into the hall that was created between the Wall of Light and the store façade were two 23-ft. digital graffiti installations designed by Apologue and programmed by Tangible Interaction (Vancouver). Black, high-gloss surfaces invited visitors to leave their mark by drawing their own interactive digital graffiti with modified Chanel paint cans. The installation was entirely controlled by a custom iPhone App and automatically captured screen grabs of the digital canvas to create a perfect time lapse of the entire three-day event, which was displayed during New York’s Fashion Night Out.
The following day the digital graffiti installation was open to the public, inviting children of all ages to contribute content.
Project Details
Rare to see an installation that can meld the often scaleless and antiseptic quality of LED and plasma monitors with the genuine texture of cobblestoned SoHo and the giggles of perfectly dressed fashionistas holding radio frequency-emitting spray cans, making their archived graffiti tags while Lagerfeld looked on… A terrific combination of sophistication, interactivity, and technology, exemplifying what a true dynamic environment should offer: a place for us to feel connected, important, and heard.
Design Team
Apologue (media wall design, interactive graffiti design), United Visual Artists (media wall content), Tangible Interactive (interactive graffiti design/programming), Scharff Weisberg (technology integration)
Design Firm
Apologue
Fabricators
KCD