Chamber of Reflection

Almost immediately coming out of the experience, Annie and I both had ideas for the project. While Annie wanted to make a dome of sorts that included things we saw and hear, I wanted to make a mobile using items found on the street that, when in motion, would recreate the sounds of the city that I heard while blindfolded. Working our ideas off of each other, we decided to create a prism using mirror-tiles. After making this decision, we decided to paint the city behind the eye-hole on the structure so that the viewer would never be able to see it– just its reflection. This was important because during the experience, although neither of us could see our surroundings, we both felt as though we were almost able to see even more than we could with our eyes open. For example: upon hearing the honk of a taxi-cab, we were able to imagine the people in the cab, where they were going, and where they had come from.

The process of making the piece proved to be very difficult. We hot-glued each individual mirror-tile to pieces of black illustration board that we had cut out in order to fit the sides of a mirrored hexagon we had purchased. Next, we glued each piece of the illustration board, now with one side mirrored, to the hexagon. After that, we glued an additional mirror-hexagon to the top of the structure so that it could be reflected as well. Because I had initially wanted to add an element of sound to the piece, we decided to hang dead leaves from Union Square from the top of it, so that when the viewer picked up the piece, they could hear the sound of dried leaves in the wind.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project. Though the construction of the piece was very difficult and time consuming, I think that the final product really paid off. It was exactly what both Annie and I had wanted it to be and more.

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