Artist To Illuminate Salesforce Tower With Moving Images
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – An art installation 1,000 feet in the sky will soon be coming to San Francisco's skyline. The work from a local artist will soon be atop the Salesforce Tower currently under construction.
"I don't want it to be spectacle. I want it to fit in," artist Jim Campbell said.
Campbell showed KPIX 5 a mockup of the electronic art display that will take up the top nine unoccupied floors of the new Salesforce Tower.
The display will have 11,000 lights with varying colors and designs. A soft video projection will show scenes from around the city.
At 1,000 feet high, 61 stories up, it will be the tallest public work of art in America. It's also a piece of art that will only be appreciated from afar.
"I'm working on by far the largest project that I'll ever work on, and no one will ever see it bigger than that," Campbell said, laughing.
Unlike most light displays, from the Bay Bridge to Times Square, this work of art will be soft, muted. Purposefully so. These lights will be pointed inward.
"Instead of looking at the lights themselves, which are harsh, they face the wall, or in the case of the tower, they face the side of the building. So you get a much softer image here, because it's reflected instead of direct," Campbell said. "By being soft, not flashy. And by being reflective, not direct light it will be easier to live with every day, whether you are looking at it or not."
If all goes well, the work of art may be visible from the Salesforce Tower by this fall.
