Gravity and Grace is a site-specific large-scale LED public artwork integrated into the architecture of JBG SMITH’s Central Place Plaza in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. The work is 150-feet long by 15-feet high and occupies the top two bays of the parking structure above the plaza. The ever-changing artwork incorporates real-time environmental data that organizes its spectral shifts of color, form, and motion parameters. Both color field painting and blues guitar inspired the design of the artwork.

This project is sponsored in part by Arlington Public Art and created in collaboration with Norm Schwab of Lightswitch and Pablo N. Molina of PNM Designs, who wrote specific algorithms that incorporate the data into an aleatory system that drives the color and motion transitions in the artwork. Molina, in collaboration with real-time content specialists Jesse Gilbert and Jesse Garrison, leveraged the power and flexibility of Notch to realize Garten’s artistic vision while providing endless variations and remaining true to his sophisticated color palette. The real-time Notch content engine is hosted on the groundbreaking Disguise GX1 media server, a formidable and compact system specifically designed to efficiently render complex real-time content. The GX1 server is controlled by a bespoke software system, created by Molina and Gilbert, that generates unique daily content playback schedules and manages all the live data feeds that drive the installation.