Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is a place defined by motion. This year, that constant movement becomes the foundation of a yearlong exhibition from Georgia Tech Arts.
“Transport | Transform | Transcend: Innovations in Materials and Movements” opened Nov. 25 in Terminal T North and runs through November 2026. Curated by Birney Robert, the installations by Georgia Tech researchers and artists turn movement — through bodies, wireless signals, sound, and recycled materials — into something you can see, hear, and interact with.
The challenge: create work that registers in seconds but still invites deeper engagement.
Here’s what travelers might encounter.
LuminAI: An AI system that dances with you
One installation centers on LuminAI, a system that learns from how you move and responds with movement of its own. Walk closer, and it recognizes your presence, tracking your motion and displaying it on a digital avatar.
Created by digital media professor Brian Magerko and research scientist Milka Trajkova, the project treats AI not as a tool but as a creative partner. Because airport visitors encounter art in passing, Trajkova said the system was designed for a “glance-based audience.”
“The goal of my research in AI and creativity has always been to augment, not replace, the human experience,” Magerko said.
TechThrive turns travelers’ motion into live visuals
Walk past computer science professor Ashutosh Dhekne’s TechThrive installation and your movement becomes part of the art. Using ultra-wideband wireless signals, the system translates nearby motion into a shifting, flower-like form. The center incorporates arcs representing departing flights, drawn from publicly available aviation data.
Because the work operates entirely on-device — no cameras, no cloud processing — Dhekne emphasizes its sustainability. The project, he said, “makes science more accessible to everyone.”
BIKES brings mobile sound art to the concourse
Composer and researcher Henrik von Coler’s BIKES, developed with Edison Electric Bikes founder Ryan Hersh, turns bicycles into mobile sound installations. The project grew from von Coler’s experience riding in Atlanta and observing how sound already accompanies cyclists.
For the airport, the team displayed what von Coler calls a “Phase II prototype,” a sound system designed to work “everywhere inside the perimeter … without a generator that runs on fossil fuels.”
Nearby, Gil Weinberg’s installation features Haile, a robotic musician capable of listening and responding in real-time. The work was designed to give airport audiences multiple ways to engage — through the robot’s presence, images of related research, or a short video.
Installations made from recycled plastic and solar research
Architect Hyojin Kwon presents two projects that respond to the airport’s compressed attention span. “Plastic Reimagined” transforms locally collected high-density polyethylene and Polylactic Acid waste into sculptural forms. “Ephemeral Instruments” uses computational processing to generate shifting digital patterns. Both, Kwon said, use “recognizable forms or rhythmic digital motion to meet viewers moving at airport pace.”
Designer Lisa Marks contributes textile-based works that merge computational design with traditional handcraft, using structure and light to create sculptural forms that remain legible even to travelers moving quickly through the concourse.
Materials scientist Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena and artist Jeremy Bolen collaborate on work grounded in solar energy research, inviting what Correa-Baena calls “a deeper conversation about the scientific, ethical, and societal dimensions of harnessing and using photons from sunlight.”
Media artist Daniel Phelps‘s “Silicon and Soil” uses image processing and a hidden audio layer to explore how digital imagery shapes perception.
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A broader commitment to creative technologies
“Transport | Transform | Transcend” also reflects Georgia Tech’s broader commitment to creative technologies, including its Creative Quarter initiative and a forthcoming Bachelor of Science in Arts, Entertainment, and Creative Technologies. With installations drawing from engineering, dance, music technology, material science, and architecture, the exhibition brings emerging research into one of the world’s most heavily trafficked public spaces.
For Georgia Tech, the installation is both showcase and experiment: proof that art, science, and engineering can converge in a transit hub where millions of people who might never visit a gallery can stop, look, and move.
The exhibition runs through November 2026 and is free and accessible to all Hartsfield-Jackson travelers.