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[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
Life is tenuous and luxury easily lost, as illustrated in brilliant glittering fashion by this perfect replica of a Mercedes Benz S550 that has seen better days. Can arbitrarily assigned status be maintained even once an object has been used, abused and discarded for newer and nicer things? Artist Jordan Griska ruminates on these questions and contradictions with ‘Wreck,’ a crushed vehicle reproduced in faceted mirrored stainless steel.
Though its appearance intimates violence and destruction, the car remains undeniably beautiful thanks to all of those individual panes reflecting light at a slightly different angle, making it look like an oversized gemstone. Philadelphia Contemporary, which premiered the sculpture last fall at the city’s Pier 9, notes that the sculpture touches on the ways in which debauchery and decadence can spin out of control.
“Wreck is based on a computer-generated model of a luxury sedan, in a video game, which was manipulated to look like it was involved in a crash that resulted in a fatality,” says Griska. “I crafted 12,000 individual pieces of mirror-finish stainless steel, over the course of almost two years, in order to transform that model into a full-sized three-dimensional monument.”
“The perfect geometry and flawless materiality of the piece reflect the inspiration of idealized digital design, in stark contrast with the grimness of the reality it represents. Beauty, technology and engineering collide with death and reality.”
[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
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Skill, dedication, vision: a good timelapse requires all of these things. A really cool subject helps too. ‘The Allegory of the Cave,’ a new timelapse from Visual Suspect, checks all of those boxes. By mirroring Hong Kong’s vibrant cityscapes, its creators aim to play with themes of ‘perception and knowledge as reflection of our reality.’
Familiar images of skyscrapers in clouds or boats in a harbor become abstract shapes – where does one image stop and its reflection begin? Is anything real?
See? We told you it was trippy.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
Dazzling in the most literal sense, architecture clad in mirrored glass or stainless steel almost seem to become part of the sky and landscapes that surround it so you can’t quite tell where the man-made objects end and nature begins. That’s often the point, with architects creating structures that virtually disappear into their surroundings (to the chagrin of more than a few birds.)
Reflecting the vast open sky and signature palm trees of Indio, California, where Coachella is held each year, the installation ‘Reflection Field’ by Phillip K. Smith III consists of five monolithic volumes that transform all day along with the environment. At night, colored light is projected from within.
It’s safe to say there’s no French country estate quite as dazzling as this one, now that its facade has been entirely replaced with mirrors. Architecture studio Bona-Lemercier worked with artist Xavier Veilhan and set designer Alexis Bertrand to transform a 1960s home into ‘Le Château de Rentilly,’ a contemporary art gallery.
A pair of vacation homes in the South Tyrolean Dolomites by Peter Pichler offer up space for guests without interrupting the property owners’ view of the stunning mountains. Reflective, but coated in a glare-reducing film to prevent bird collisions, the two ‘Mirror Houses’ blend into the property so they don’t compete with the client’s garden and existing 1960s farmhouse.
“In this installation I have been inspired by the pyramidal structure of ziggurat, a common form of temple in ancient Mesopotamia, attempting to connect earth and sky, so humans could be nearer to God,” says artist Shirin Abedinirad. “The Mirrored Ziggurat acts as a staircase, which seeks to connect nature with human beings and to create union of ancient history and today’s world. The installation offers a transformative view of the self. The Mirrored Ziggurat has seven levels that represent seven heavens. For me, mirrors amplify this paradise, giving light; an important mystical concept in Persian culture, and a medium creating an optical illusion.”
It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s reflection when gazing inside the transparent facade of MVRDV’s beautiful new library at the Binhai Cultural Centre in the Chinese city of Tianjin. A mirrored spherical auditorium inside the main atrium reflects both the interior space around it (including all those books!) and the park outside.
[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Mirrors can disrupt our perception of our environment, especially when they’re positioned to blur the lines between land and sky, up and down, reality and reflection. These 12 (more) mirrored art installations dazzle us with glinting light, confuse us with illusions and invite us to question the difference between what we are shown and what we believe to be true.
Slivers of the sky seem to hover in mid-air if you approach this mirrored ziggurat from one of its corners, the steps reflecting the sky while the walls reflect the grass. “In this installation I have been inspired by the pyramidal structure of Ziggurat, a common form of temple in ancient Mesopotamia, attempting to connect earth and sky, so humans could be nearer to god,” says artist Shirin Abedinirad. “The Mirrored Ziggurat acts as a staircase, which seeks to connect nature with human beings and to create union of ancient history and today’s world. The installation offers a transformative view of the self.”
Tiny shards of mirrors reflect light all over the surrounding surfaces as they form a silvery fragmented coat for a six-legged wolf. Titled ‘Donning Animal Skins and Braided Grass,’ the sculpture by Tomoko Konoike draws inspiration from both tradition and pop culture in the form of manga and Shinto animism.
Portions of a three-dimensional landscape are cut out and pasted on top of themselves in a large-scale mirror series called A Moment’s Reflection by Cody William Smith. The effect is most striking at night, when one side of the sky is dramatically different from the other. “My intention is to draw new connections between familiar forms by interdicting specular reflections to environments where none would typically exist. The mirrors serve as a focal point within a given scene and also function as a window to provide an entirely unique perspective on the same location.”
Visitors carefully navigate a maze full of mirrors in Sydney’s Hyde Park, as it would be far too easy to just walk right into one of the reflective columns. Architecture firm Out of the Dark installed 81 mirrored posts with 423 reflective surfaces at the park as an interactive exhibit encouraging visitors to question what’s real and what’s an illusion.
Cabins vanish into the landscape like a mirage, tiny rooms filled with stars somehow go on forever and treetops float in mid-air in these reality-distorting …
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Mirrors typically represent a way of facing reality, but depending on where they’re placed, they can bend it to the point of surreality instead. Take, …
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Intentionally fooling the eye to either completely disorient you or focus your vision on a certain part of a scene, these mirrored buildings reflect their …
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
A white box seems to hover in mid-air in the middle of the forest, with no visible supports suspending it from adjacent trees. This structure isn’t a treehouse at all, and it’s actually at least twice the size it appears. It virtually disappears into its natural environment thanks to the mirrors covering most of its bottom story, reflecting nearby trees and the forest floor.
Izabelin House by Reform Architekt is a woodland retreat outside Warsaw, Poland, designed as a tranquil getaway that blends into the forest, becoming a part of it. Approaching the two-story dwelling from the street side, it doesn’t appear out of the ordinary. It’s when you step to the side or the back that the illusion comes into play.
The white upper story is the only thing that gives the home away from certain angles – otherwise, it might be near-invisible. Other mirrored structures employ reflective panels on the entire exterior surface, or alternate them with wood for an effect that’s extra-surreal. Another approach covers the entire outside of a forest home with images of trees as camouflage.
A creative response to a new legal loophole, this structure is designed specifically to test the limits of a Swedish planning law allowing buildings under a …
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Intentionally fooling the eye to either completely disorient you or focus your vision on a certain part of a scene, these mirrored buildings reflect their …
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Pristine nature versus urban development seem ever at war, but this designer proposes a low-impact, small-footprint approach for cross-kingdom co-habitation …
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
Intentionally fooling the eye to either completely disorient you or focus your vision on a certain part of a scene, these mirrored buildings reflect their surroundings, often seeming to disappear entirely when viewed from certain angles. Hopefully, all of these deceptive reflective surfaces aren’t killing too many birds.
The branches of an adjacent row of cherry trees are multiplied many times over in the polished mirrored surfaces of this roadside cafe by japanese firm Bandesign. The trees are a tourist draw during bloom season, so putting the focus on them helps draw in business for the cafe owners.
Mirrored panels completely transform a 1960s country house, Le Château de Rentilly, in the French countryside. Architecture studio Bona-LeMercier worked with artist Xavier Veilhan and set designer Alexis Bertrand to enhance the structure itself and also put the focus on the picturesque hillside setting. The former home is now a permanent gallery for Frac Île-de-France, the region’s contemporary art fund.
A combination of see-through portals and mirrored surfaces make this structure seem like a mirage as you approach the little park in which it stands. Designed for the 2014 Folly Competition, the mirrored barn isn’t actually a three-dimensional structure but rather a house-shaped wall.
Ordinary passersby suddenly become talented acrobats when they interact with ‘Bâtiment,’ an installation by Leandro Erlich on display at Le 14 in paris as part of the In_Perceptions exhibition. The project added a massive mirror to the vertical facade of a real building, reflecting a fake facade that was applied to the sidewalk in front of it. The result is a fun optical illusion that made participants appear to defy gravity.
Mirrors typically represent a way of facing reality, but depending on where they’re placed, they can bend it to the point of surreality instead. Take, …
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At first: vertigo. You are moving along the sidewalk, when suddenly you see the front of a structure, only on its side, extruded from the ground below you.
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Cabins vanish into the landscape like a mirage, tiny rooms filled with stars somehow go on forever and treetops float in mid-air in these reality-distorting …
Click Here to Read More »»
[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
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[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]
Illuminated cityscapes multiply and divide in unexpected ways when their nighttime reflections hit the mirrored facades of the skyscrapers found within them. Photographer Donna Dotan, known for her vivid and meticulously composed architectural shots, came across her project ‘Reflections from Above’ by accident while shooting an apartment for sale at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City.
Holding her camera outside the window to snap a photo, Dotan captured not just the city below, but also its reflection against the building itself.
The results play into Dotan’s fascination with symmetry and highlight certain aspects of each scene, whether the frenetic energy of the busy streets or the comparative tranquility of the deserted rooftops.
According to Dotan’s bio, her interest in the built environment began as a child when her family spent summers in Israel, the architecture speaking to her “in an intimate way.” She believes her success as a young photographer comes from “her unique ability to see spaces from the eye of a camera.”
The ‘Reflections from Above’ series has only just begun – keep an eye on Dotan’s website for more.
In any photographer’s bag of tricks, unusual perspective is a powerful tool. These perfect reflections make for beautifully unique photographs.
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Step through the looking glass and into an understated art project that turns a simple passageway into a lighthearted journey back to childhood wonder.
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As China has transformed from a largely agricultural society to an industrial superpower, vastly changing its landscape with both construction equipment and …
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[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Like a mirage on the horizon, the structure seems to shimmer into and out of existence, playing tricks on the eye with a combination of see-through portals and reflective surfaces.
Designed for the 2014 Folly Competition held by The Architecture League, the idea was to slip something into an existing park context that would draw attention and generate interaction.
Deceptively, the building itself is nearly two-dimensional, adding another element of camouflage depending on the angle of view or direction of approach. Unlike its more solid cousin the invisible cabin, the result in this case could really catch you by surprise, but is still probably less dangerous to walk into by accident than a mirrored fence.
One of the self-imposed problems its designers sought to solve revolved around the question of year-round engagement – how to make something that changed and was worth revisiting from one season to the next.
From the design brief: “This mirror-finished folly is placed in the middle of the grove and reflects its surrounding environment: different species of trees and plants, sky, ground and the seasonal changes of the site. The reflection of the folly within its enclosed grove allows the structure to smoothly assimilate into the nature.”
“The incisions that penetrate through the folly allow visitors to maneuver in, out, and around the structure. Invisible Barn is a folly that loses its man-made architectural presence in nature but adds novel experience and interaction to the users.””
Mirrors typically represent a way of facing reality, but depending on where they’re placed, they can bend it to the point of surreality instead. Take, …
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A simple illusion with so much potential – wrap an object, paint the wrapping plastic and presto, a central section appears to disappear before your …
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Cayetano Ferrer likes putting prints on ordinary objects and capturing everyday scenes in strange ways on videos. This new project expands his approaches.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Mirrors typically represent a way of facing reality, but depending on where they’re placed, they can bend it to the point of surreality instead. Take, for example, this invisible fence, a striking illusion installed at the Storm King Arts Center by artist Alyson Shotz. Driving past it, you likely wouldn’t even notice it was there, though your eye might be caught by unusual glimmers – tricks of the light.
‘Mirror Fence’ is exactly as the title suggests; a reflective barrier in the shape of a picket fence that’s almost perfectly camouflaged in its environment. The illusion is so effective that you could probably walk right up to it, only realizing that the barrier exists when the reflection of your own legs comes into view.
Though her portfolio reflects a diverse range of shapes and media, Shotz unifies her work with a common aim to “give form to the invisible forces of nature.” Many focus on light itself, such as a sculptural examination of the dual nature of light (as it bears characteristics of both a particle and a wave) entitled Geometry of Light, and a digital animation called ‘Fluid State’ that captures an ocean of reflective spheres over a dawn-to-dusk cycle.
The installation calls to mind another recent project, ‘Lucid Stead’ by Phillip K Smith III, wherein an abandoned home in the desert was fitted with mirrors that make up doors, windows and long horizontal siding to create the illusion of ghostly floating wood.
A simple illusion with so much potential – wrap an object, paint the wrapping plastic and presto, a central section appears to disappear before your …
Click Here to Read More »»
At first: vertigo. You are moving along the sidewalk, when suddenly you see the front of a structure, only on its side, extruded from the ground below you.
Click Here to Read More »»
Step through the looking glass and into an understated art project that turns a simple passageway into a lighthearted journey back to childhood wonder.
Click Here to Read More »»
[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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