When you’re standing in a terminal, odds are you’re focused on your seat assignment. But you should also be thinking about art: Airports and other transit stations are perfect places for outsize eye candy to be seen by masses on the move. These high tech installations give you something to appreciate when you reach your final destination.

• Cloud

  Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 (above)
  A 16-foot-long peanut suspended from the ceiling uses 4,638 flip dots to create shimmering patterns above travelers’ heads.
  What to watch for: The two-tone dots go clickety-clack, a reminder of old-style airport departure boards. Just don’t expect an update on your connecting flight to Frankfurt.

• Università Station at Metronapoli

  Naples, Italy
  A tutti-frutti color palate and visual stunts like wall panels plastered with lenticular images that change as you move past them.
  What to watch for: “The entire platform wall is lenticular,” designer Karim Rashid says. When your train leaves the station, “you see blobs spinning.”

• eCloud

  San Jose International Airport
  Nearly 3,000 LCD tiles shift from clear to opaque in patterns that reflect weather conditions around the world.
  What to watch for: “There are some rare weather types,” and each has a unique effect on the cloud, says data-visualization artist and cocreator Aaron Koblin. “Watch for thunderstorms or hail.”

• Platform 5

  Sunderland Station, England
  Animated shadowy passengers mill about on a glass wall—until a train pulls in and they seem to scramble to get on.
  What to watch for: “Some of the people are more friendly than others” when they’re “boarding,” creative director Jason Bruges says. “They each have their own character.”