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 BART AT OAKLAND AIRPORT

PERIODIC MOTION for the BART station at Oakland International Airport in California expands the idea that art is the experience we bring to it. The viewer inside the station is in the Work looking out. The artwork addresses the transition from rail to flight, land to air and space to create an immersive environment of diagonally oriented, motion-projected shapes that are connected linearly as a single gesture. The human mind envisions a departure and destination with points along the way. This conscious thought is depicted literally – expressing it visually by combining abstract shapes, symbols, signs and images discovered on subway, rail, air and space travel maps and along traveled paths and trails found in nature. The Work is specific to the airport; its appearance retains the aesthetic integrity of the open-air environment and the building materials that represent the technologies of our time.

“What aroused my interest in this glass is its ability to reflect and transmit light in a particular way,”said Tom. “At sunrise and sunset. in the long red wavelengths of light. The pyrolitic gold coating on the glass responds accordingly. With the daytime blue wave length,it changes again. The additional feature of the Pilkington Eclipse™ Gold is its durability during fabrication.” But light reflections have to be handled critically in an airport environment.”I needed to create a combination of diffuse and scattered reflectance to avoid the danger of flash blindness,”said Tom.

Watch the video to learn more about the artist and the project.