Nero Chenxuan He

Urban Data Mining is a projection mapping public digital art project on the iconic Daniels & Fisher Tower, a 325-foot tall historic landmark in downtown Denver, built in 1911. The project digitally reconstructs the tower piece by piece, using 76,484 unique objects. Every material on the tower is meticulously documented, including its color, dimensions, material, and detailed specifications. This information is collected as urban data and displayed as tags that are mapped onto the tower itself, visualizing the data through advanced machine vision techniques.

In today’s architectural landscape, it's crucial to consider how buildings deconstruct as thoughtfully as they are assembled. By creating an urban mining database, we gain a powerful tool for not only preserving historic buildings but also for enabling future architectural upcycling. The architectural "kit of parts" from the Daniels & Fisher Tower emerges from these tags, extending like living limbs that interact with the street below, exploring new possibilities and styles within this complex, data-rich interface. This project exemplifies the potential of information overload in reshaping our understanding and engagement with architectural heritage.

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This artwork is part of the 2024 Digerati Experimental Media Festival, curated by Sharifa Lafon / Denver Digerati.

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"Decode Recode", this year's theme for the Digerati Experimental Media Festival, highlights seven artists who push the boundaries of experimental practices and collaboration, challenging mainstream narratives through time-based media. The artists featured for Night Lights Denver embody this theme, each bringing unique methods and perspectives to their work. Together, they create a cohesive program that resonates with the festival’s commitment to innovation and the subversion of dominant visual narratives. You can learn more about the full program at denverdigerati.org

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About the Artist:

Nero Chenxuan He is a Beijing-born educator, an architectural designer, and a multi-media artist. He has studied architecture and design in the United States and Denmark. He leads his own creative practice, HeXagōn{分集研究所}, whose work has been exhibited in music videos, storefronts, galleries, digital billboards, and museums in various countries. He is an assistant professor at Texas Tech University (TTU) Huckabee College of Architecture where he runs his own design research lab, Quasi Design Lab, and has been invited to initiate and teach the public digital art program at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). Before his current role at Texas Tech, he held the visiting professor position at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has also taught studios and seminars at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).