Located at the San Diego International Airport’s new Rental Car Center, DAZZLE is designed to enhance visitors’ experience through the installment of over 2,000 individual tiles that display custom, dynamic animations across the exterior of the building. The autonomous, solar-powered tiles use E Ink Prism, similar to the technology found in e-readers, but adapted for an architectural scale.

DAZZLE transforms the 1,600-foot long façade of the new airport Rental Car Center into an interactive landmark mural, which will be viewed daily by hundreds of thousands of airport visitors, motorists on the Interstate 5 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway, and public transit users.

Ueberall International designed the site-specific artwork with inspiration from Norman Wilkinson’s “razzle dazzle” camouflage technique used during World War I in the waters of San Diego to alter the perception of ships to the enemy by visually scrambling their shapes and outlines. The artwork is truly site-specific, as it responds to the unique, faceted geometry of the building architecture.

“Our artist approach for DAZZLE was inspired by the historic form of ship camouflage, but our breakthrough came with the idea of applying e-Paper technology to the façade. We knew that E Ink technology was the perfect partner to help us achieve our design, given its flexible and extremely durable properties,” said Nik Hafermaas, co-founder of Ueberall International and principal project artist. “We’ve worked with E Ink on a number of projects so we’re thrilled to reveal the largest deployment of E Ink Prism in the world.”

The physical components of DAZZLE include e-Paper tiles, wireless transmitters and a host computer. The e-Paper tiles are designed in a parallelogram shape and arranged in algorithmic distances to create an overall dynamic visual effect, even when the pixels are still. Each tile is integrated with a solar cell for power, electronics for operation and wireless communication to create each unique animation developed by the artists. The animations can evoke water ripples, moving traffic, dancing snowflakes or shifting geometries.

“This is the first large-scale deployment of E Ink’s Prism technology that will be accessible to the public view. It’s a testament to the unique value Prism creates in architectural design, enabling designers to create eco-friendly, durable and visually exciting designs that transform buildings and structures,” said Paul Apen, Chief Strategy Officer at E Ink.

“DAZZLE is the perfect example of how E Ink’s Prism can deliver a completely new and dynamic one-of-a-kind experience, transforming a once static space into something dynamic and spectacular.”