Exosphere and the Field of Globes
….are permanent installations at Autostadt, a theme park and museum complex in Wolfsburg, Germany. It is located in the Piazza of Autostadt’s KonzernForum, welcoming visitors when they first enter the complex. The installation incorporates both the Exosphere, a large aluminum gridded globe, and the Field of Globes, a display of World Processor globes shown beneath glass.
The Exosphere has a diameter of 12 m (39'4"), weighs 4.5 tons, and relates to the Earth at a scale of 1:1,000,000. Its blue LED display indicates the geographic location of Wolfsburg, local temperature and time (supplied by the Atomic clock). It is positioned where Wolfsburg would be on this globe, assuming that the bottom of the globe is North and the vertical red display represents the position of the international dateline.
Field of Globes is a permanent installation of ninety World Processor globes. These spheres are readymade acrylic globes altered by the artist to visualize data on a variety of topics. This data comes from myriad sources, including the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other organizations. For example, several of the globes in the Field of Globes display data relating to automobile use and production. The Field of Globes evolves over time, incorporating new globes and topics that reflect the changing world.
