How to create an art edition related to a practice which focuses on ephemeral in situ installations? Should it be an object, analogue in nature or a digital work? Can we control the way it is installed or viewed when it’s out of our hands?
These questions led us to the View-Master, a toy we know from our childhoods. This stereoscope uses a series of analogue transparencies —called reels— and has some particular analogue aesthetics. The concept was to makes reels of spatial installations which are (nearly) impossible to make physically.
For the first reel we’ve created a digital three-dimensional installation, rendered into 7 stereoscopic images. By clicking through the images on the reel you spin 360° around the installation, enabling you to be immersed in the space and view it from a several angles. By using an analogue medium in combination with digital techniques this art edition is very close to the essence of our practice. Using light from its surroundings the View-Master creates an image with the illusion of depth in a static, minimal form of virtual reality.
A second reel, which hasn’t been produced physically, displays a concept of a light sculpture. Using long exposure photography, a rotating laser beam is rendered as a three-dimensional shape. We’re currently working on an installation which brings this concept into a physical installation by using a fast-spinning laser source and the viewer’s persistence of vision.
