DC Tower - Top of Austria

The DC Tower 1 represents a significant and unique part of the skyline of Vienna due to its extraordinary architecture. Visitors of the highest building in Austria deserve an outstanding welcome gesture. This interactive and dynamic media installation in the entrance area accomplishes this by giving visitors unique views from the roof of the 250-meter-tower.

A high-resolution webcam collects images of the tower's surroundings in 5-minute intervals, creating a special pool of images over time. These captured moments which are collected over days, weeks and months are arranged in real time into vivid »time-slice« montages. By graphical overlaying and masking, the huge LED wall presents visuals as if time-lapse sequences were condensed into single images. It's about cherishing every single moment, combining all of them and setting them into context with »here and now«. Every moment in time is unique as is the special view of this location.
These aspects as well as external influences such as light moods, colors of the sky, changing weather conditions and seasons all blend together into a constantly changing work of digital art. Top of Austria.
The creative concept also fulfills an additional goal of the brief. The aim was to create some sort of familiarity for recurring visitors but never show the exact same content or become boring. By anchoring the visual representations around the latest photos from the roof it is assured that there is always footage in use that is new and has never been used before. The constant flow of changing layouts and time frames does the rest.

Laser-range sensors deliver position tracking of people in front of the LED wall, thereby enabling them to interactively influence the various visual layouts. »The DC Tower stands for dialogue, so we wanted to express this dialogue between the people and the building, while still emphasizing the speciality of our location!« David Friedl from DC Tower Management sums it up.