CIRCLING
Inaugurated June, 2005
DFW Airport
Irving, TX

Inspired by Christopher Janney’s own experience waiting in airports, he created “Circling”- an interactive, labyrinth installation at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. The name reflects both the notion of planes circling overhead and the action of the passengers themselves as they circle through four concentric rings within the thirty-foot-diameter space.

“Circling” is based on a labyrinthine form. Its walls, constructed from over one hundred sheets of two-foot-wide colored glass, spiral at different heights, up to twelve feet, along the terrazzo floor. Twenty-eight sensors embedded in the floor trigger lights and loudspeakers to reinforce the idea of illumination and sounds coming up from the earth.

Janney refers to it as an “onion-like” icon that evokes the spiritual symbol of a circle: “It is more soothing to walk in a circle than in other shapes,” he says. Not that many people at the airport key into its spiritual side, but it provides a unique way to escape from the hectic pace of the airport.