‘OUTSIDE-IN’ is partly research, partly an interactive sculptural experience designed for Sculpture by the Sea on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia (2015) and also exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea on Cottesloe Beach Perth, Australia (2016).
The project, a series of three sculptures, operates as machines for viewing, hybridizing several visual devices (a periscope, telescope, microscope and kaleidoscope) into a single form that invites users to stop, interact and look inside.
Positioned within the field of architecture and visual perception, 'OUTSIDE-IN' is an apparatus that serves as a scaffold for vision, a device that reconfigures the way we focus on and see our surrounding environment.
'OUTSIDE-IN', a series of three sculptures, operate as machines for viewing, hybridizing several visual devices (a periscope, telescope, microscope and kaleidoscope) into a single form that invites users to stop, interact and look inside.
Positioned within the field of architecture and visual perception, 'OUTSIDE-IN' is an apparatus that serves as a scaffold for vision, a device that reconfigures the way we focus on and see our surrounding environment. The project examines architecture's relationship between space and the observer and the role the visual experience plays in manipulating and reconditioning our perceptions.
Externally, 'OUTSIDE-IN' is constructed as a labyrinthine series of intersecting vectors, fabricated from welded, brushed aluminium. Internally, a weather protected mirrored acrylic interior produces a succession of kaleidoscopic viewing corridors that define specific lines of vision.
Existing as three objects deployed in varied environments creates specific interior performances; both user / environment and user / user. As a result a range of forces shape its internal and external performance. One might look down to see up (the sky), up to see down (the fine grain details of the ground and the movement of the passing visitors). Another may gaze forward and see behind, or interactions may occur between viewer and viewer as they try and navigate the mechanics between what they are seeing and where they are looking.
In this way the experience becomes personal and inter-personal. The project examines an architectural device's relationship between space and the observer and the role the visual experience plays in manipulating and reconditioning our perceptions.
The project enables a multiplicitous reading of observation and environment, a new way of seeing, taking control away from the artist and allowing each individual user to capture their own unique experience.
The three sculptures were debuted at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2015 and exhibited again at Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2016.
Outside-in is most compelling in the way that it uses simple devices to radically transform a person’s experience of a place.
It also works for users who are passively experiencing the project from afar, as pure sculpture, but then gives added delight and affords a deeper experience for those who come closer and engage with the optical mechanics of the piece.