Project Description
‘Formal Abstraction and Reflective Luminance’ is an installation that engages the viewer in both the physical and fictitious realms.
The work, constructed in the entrance exhibition hall of an engineering building at Pusan National University in South Korea, is a pair of floating hollow white cubes, each measuring 2.1 meters by 2.1 meters, is an assemblage of 216 individual modular units containing some without, white LED line lights with reflective inner housings and semi-reflective faces. Thirty-five centimeters by 35 centimeters square in profile, the units consist of 42 modular types with various enclosure depths, light alignments, inner housing configurations, and material applications.
The assemblage of the modular units forms eight distinctive floating slabs, revealing various compositional schemes on the themes of symmetry and asymmetry, repetition and instance, rhythm and irregularity, and similarity and contrast. As one moves close to work, the viewer is presented with individually engageable framed openings, each offering optical readings with line light and reflection repeating in motion into the deep dark space.
The boxes contain the actual and fictitious spaces in which optical images of distortion, blur, movement, alignment, dissipation, and rhythm are projected. Using material that nearly replicates a mirror but is not entirely reflective results in losing luminosity, with each repetition dissolving its existence. Within each framed opening, the fictitious space exists, at times, above, below, on the sides, and beyond, prompting the viewer to move closer with the eyes forcing the head to turn and tilt. Each box is independent of the other, and the optical reading gets shaped by the viewer’s position relative to the box, in which distance, angle, and movement alter the perception. The viewer’s attempt at focusing on one box gets distracted by the adjacent box and the others aligned vertically and horizontally in multiple affiliations, intriguing the viewer to survey the others.
The work is not about the light or reflection but the visceral experience itself. It presents sensory intrigue and spectacle, interrogating the relationship between the physical and the fictional. The installation reminds the viewer of the ability of design to transcend physical limitations, blur the boundaries between the actual and fictitious realms, and interconnect the two, creating captivating spaces.
PROJECT TEAM
Lawrence Kim, Daegeon Lee, Donghoon Kim, Jaewoong Yoon, Sangwoo Jeon, Hyeonseok Park, Sooyon Kim, Daegyung Kim, Minhye Choi, Chanhyo Jung, Taewon Um