Public Service / Private Steps

Douglas Jung Building. Vancouver 2004

The 65’ high artwork sits on an oval plaza of black BC granite salvaged from the historical Customs House that once sat on this site of the current building. The structure is a series of 10” x 10” x 72’ steel columns that are arranged in such a way as to delineate an approximately 1/5th scale representation to the 5 elevator shafts in the core of the building. The elevator cars are represented in their respective positions on the columns. An interface with the elevator controller system in the building causes the artwork cars (boxes) to glide up and down in exact co-relation, in real time, to the movements of the building elevators. A sensor pad underneath the carpets in each of the building elevators, picks up the footprints of the passengers and transmits the information out to an LED screen on the underside of each of the artwork elevator cars in the sculpture. A realtime image of the passenger footprints and their movements inside the car is represented, as the car travels from floor to floor. The social aspects of the private, and public dynamic are a part of the language in the work in this public service building.