Seattle-based app security and delivery company F5 Networks and its NGINX business unit are taking their technology on tour.
F5 and NGINX, in collaboration with local artists, are debuting a digital-physical art exhibit called "Now Arriving," housed in a shipping container. For now, the container sits at a secret location in Ballard, but F5 and NGINX plan to tour the exhibit as a pop-up in different cities around the country to demonstrate of NGINX's open source technology.
"We did an internal build-out with the consideration that this (shipping container) is going to move," said Ross Monroe, one of the artists who worked on "Now Arriving." "We purposefully worked with a contractor and conveyed all this information to make sure that we can make sure this is resilient."
To experience the exhibit, users first pick a destination via an app and then step into an enclosed space designed to feel like an elevator.
Once inside, users pick three "floors." The inside of the faux elevator is made of screens that show moving scenes at each floor. Users see images appear to move down through the floor, making the users feel like they are really riding up an elevator. The final scene shows the destination users chose at the beginning, inviting them to feel like they have arrived.
The exhibit is designed to "bring light back to anyone in the community," according to a news release.
Others who worked on the project, in addition to Monroe, include 3D designer Sky Iraheta and new media designer Ben Chaykin.
Melissa Housley, senior product marketing manager at F5, saw a previous art installation by the artists showing a sunrise and sunset loop, which had been installed in a window near Cal Anderson Park in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, and decided to get in touch. The collaboration led to "Now Arriving."
F5 acquired San Francisco-based NGINX for $670 million in 2019. F5 offers products and services in app security, traffic management and automation. NGINX is more focused on services like application programming interfaces (APIs) and development and operations, Housley said.
Iraheta designed 12 different scenes for users to experience through the exhibit, ensuring they can see different scenes if they go through the exhibit multiple times.
"I usually make something with lots of nature and architecture," Iraheta said.
You can RSVP online to see the exhibit in the coming months. The exhibit is making its first stop in San Francisco in September. Although the shipping container is in Seattle now, the exhibit not open to the public, but it will return for viewing later this year.
