Huge installation at Sochi shows giant 3D "Selfies"

Megafaces at Sochi 2014

Architect Asif Khan has created a huge screen that can display images in 3D. It is being used on the Megafon Pavilion at the Sochi Winter Olympics to promote their brand

Megafon is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Russia and to highlight their pavilion at the Sochi Winter Olympics they have commisioned architect Asif Khan to create an advanced 3D display known as "Megafaces". Khan worked with Swiss company iArt to bring his vision to reality.

The display uses 11000 coloured leds mounted on the end of actuators that can extend up to 2 metres from the screen. Visitors to the pavilion or to Megafon Shops around Russia can have their faces scanned in 3D and then displayed on the screen.

The video below shows testing during the set up of the system.

According to Asif "For thousands of years people have used portraiture to record their history on the landscape, buildings and through public art. I'm inspired by the way the world is changing around us and how architecture can respond to it. "Selfies","emoticons", "Facebook" and "FaceTime" have become universal shorthand for communicating in the digital age. My instinct was to try and harness that immediacy in the form of sculpture; to turn the everyday moment into something epic. I've been thinking of this as a kind of digital platform to express emotion, at the scale of architecture"

Ivan Tavrin, COE of Megafon commented "The two most important components of our company are hi-tech innovations and people – more than 66 million of them are our clients across Russia. Our idea was to combine these two components in the MegaFaces pavilion concept, and I believe that we were successful. This very complicated, technologically challenging installation, enables us to realise our creative ideas and gives the opportunity to everyone to become part of the great Olympic history".