Data meets art: London's voices turned into code for large-scale artwork

The artwork is made up a dots perforated onto aluminium panels

London's largest participatory public artwork has been unveiled in west London.

Created by artist Rafael El Baz, 11 Million Dots measures 2,700 square metres (29,000 sq ft and spans the six storey façade of a new data centre near Park Royal, Ealing.

El Baz recorded ambient noise and sounds from the area as well as more than 120 audio interviews with local residents and business owners which he then transformed into binary code and audio waveforms.

They were then perforated onto aluminium panels to explore what data - something that is used daily but rarely visualised - can "look like when abstracted in a moment of time", he said.

"My practice is really about materiality, about sustainability, waste streams – the way in which we undervalue certain materials and how that leads into the way we undervalue certain stories," he said.

"This takes the unheard stories of people and turns them into something sustainable."

It covers one side of the Vantage Data Centers' building

The artwork is part of London's Design Festival.

London's deputy mayor for culture and the creative industries, Justine Simons, said: "Public art brings our city to life, it sparks conversations, celebrates and connects our communities and 11 Million Dots does all of this and more.

"A data centre in Acton and Park Royal has been transformed with a stunning installation, the abstract patterns drawn directly from conversations with local people and the surrounding environment, its clouds, trees and traffic."