NoHo art installation triggered by traffic.

It's not Hollywood and Vine, Sunset Strip or Wilshire Boulevard, but the team working on a large art installation at Lankershim and Chandler boulevards in NoHo is hoping to make the intersection just as notable.

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The artwork, part of a citywide requirement that large developments include public art, is an electronic showcase measuring 240 feet in length and six feet in height, that will project memorable movie quotes along with abstract light patterns. The light patterns will be triggered by the movement of traffic as cars pass by the installation.

"Our desire was to make a kind of landmark so it becomes a place of significance and not just another corner in the Valley," said Cameron McNall, an architect and artist, who created and constructed the piece with partner Damon Seeley.

The piece, which is yet to be named, is part of the NoHo Commons development, a mixed-use project developed by J.H. Snyder Co. that includes loft residences along with some combination living/working loft spaces, restaurants and stores.

The team, whose company is Electroland, decided to feature movie quotes because of the area's association with Hollywood.

Some of the quotes currently slated to appear on the piece are "Go ahead, make my day," from "Dirty Harry;" "I'm walking here! I'm walking here!" from "Midnight Cowboy;" "I'll be back," from "The Terminator," and "Open the pod bay doors, Hal," from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

"After many different investigations, we decided that featuring famous lines from movies might be most appropriate given the association with Hollywood," McNall said.

McNall, who holds a masters in architecture degree from Havard University's graduate school of design and is an adjunct associate professor at UCLA's department of design and media arts, and Seeley, whose design and artwork focuses on the intersection of technology and culture, work exclusively with electronic creations.

Among their completed projects is an interactive entryway to the Met Lofts residential complex in downtown L.A., where footsteps trigger lights on a grid of LED panels on the exterior of the building.

Their NoHo project, which is still being refined, will ultimately include hundreds, if not thousands of sayings controlled remotely by computer with light patterns that will change and fluctuate as the traffic patterns change.

But the artists say that they expect the placement of the sayings, suspended off the ground, to alter their meaning as well.

"Repeating a word 10 times makes it seem stranger and stranger when you repeat it. We're taking these different phrases, many of which are iconic, but re-contextualizing them in this situation," McNall said.

BY SHELLY GARCIA

Senior Reporter