Gretchen Kupferschmid-Looking Outward-01

The Emotional Art Gallery

In Stockholm, a project called “The Emotional Art Gallery” was created by the company Clear Channel and the design studio Affairs. The main intention of the project is to improve human emotional as they interact with responsive digital billboards. The project utilizes real-time emotions by gathering data from things like google searches, news stories, and social media in order to decipher the general moods of commuters across the city. From this info, the screen displays six different artworks from different artists to counter the negative feelings, each with the goal of depicting a different feeling. I appreciate the focus of this project on its human-center focus, as its not just artwork, but something instead that has the power to enhance the human experience and creative a more positive impact on a society.

Though this project is original in many aspects, the concept and tech is not completely new. In 2017, a digital billboard was installed in London that used recognition tech to display targeted advertisements based off things like the types of cars passing by and other visual cues. Though Clear Channel’s project analyzes different cues with different code behind it, the general idea of responding with targeted billboards is similar.

This project is the largest scale exhibition showcasing digital art, but its impact doesn’t just stop in Stockholm. The creators of the project are allowing their algorithm to become available to other brands to use for their billboard in order to spread more positivity in a stressed world. I even see opportunity for this project to be implemented in places like colleges where there are also a high number of stressed people.

A case study video of the project and process by Clear Channel