BY ZAHID SARDAR PORTFOLIO
“I NEVER SAW myself as an artist,” San Francisco multimedia sculptor Jim Campbell
says at his Dogpatch studio, pointing to artworks scattered about, including several scale
models of an LED light installation he created for the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower.
Every evening the top nine floors of the 61-story tower by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
light up against the night sky with Campbell’s 11,136-bulb piece called “Day for
Night.” Visible for miles around, it currently shows silhouettes of dancers flitting
across a lit background. Clouds swirling around the building, bay life around the
Exploratorium, waves crashing at Sea Cliff, Bay Area crowds and birds will all be added
in time to complete this tableau of patterns of movement, captured by day and shown
in a loop at night. To achieve this effect, short, injection-molded ASA (acrylonitrile
MOVING IMAGES
LED light artist Jim Campbell explores the
emotional impact of “low-resolution” animation.
Top: Campbell’s “Running Falling Apart” (2005); right: “Day for Night” (2018), at Salesforce Tower.
