Making Space

Within a single room, roughly 26’ square, a grid of strings with a 6” spacing, were suspended from the ceiling to form a series of planes delineating a series of spaces. The individual strings were weighted with translucent spheres, which hovered above the ground plane, collectively forming planes at specific heights. Through the use of color and minimal material edges the user was engaged in a spatial experience that was physical, visual and intellectual. The open volume of the gallery was simultaneously divided and unified by ten distinct but interconnect spaces of color with edges defined by the planes of various lengths and densities of suspended string. These planes of string alternately compressed space, while at other times expanded out to the exterior or slipped into an adjacent volume.

The floor, walls and ceiling of each zone defined by the planes of string, were painted with highly saturated colors, further defining and blurring the edges between the vertical and horizontal surfaces. The colors were chosen to compose a series of visual elements that moved either to the front or back of the viewer’s perceptual field. The planes of string had a strong visual presence but light physical quality so they would disappear as one concentrated on spaces beyond. The colored surfaces also had a strong spatial presence but flattened out when the viewer focused on the planes of string or changed their depth of field.

The interaction between the color of gallery surfaces and the transparency of suspended strings created a series of highly articulated spaces that would collapse and compress when the viewer changed positions. These spaces vibrated between definition and ambiguity, as the participant moved through the project. The spaces hovered between a strong physical definition and an immaterial, almost flattened sense of space. The project created a spatial experience of polarities, from connecting to separating, compressing to expanding, and cohering to collapsing.

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