Amelia Groom from Big In Japan shows us Air Port, part of the Digital Pub­lic Art pro­ject at Haneda Air­port, which brought a sense of fun to a space where we’re more used to rush­ing and wor­ry­ing than playing.

“Air Port”, part of the Digital Pub­lic Art at Haneda Air­port | Photo by Tet­suro Yoshida on Flickr

As pos­sibly the most con­trived and con­trolled built envir­on­ments pos­sible, air­ports are rather sur­real places. Like dis­or­i­ent­ing black holes where time and space cease to exist in the same way, they are sites of heightened emo­tions (the drama of good­byes and reunions, the anti­cip­a­tion of new jour­neys, the panic of missed flights) played out along­side intense bore­dom. Per­fect places, I say, for trans­par­ent float­ing bal­loon people.

In late Octo­ber Ter­min­als 1 and 2 at Haneda Air­port were filled with digital pub­lic art pro­jects, includ­ing human bal­loons, LED stars and video pro­jec­tions. Here’s to other inter­na­tional air­ports tak­ing cue and play­ing host to more exper­i­mental art in the future. See more here (Japan­ese only).