Our chamber disrupts the traditional passive means artifacts are displayed and perceived. Volumetrically composing vignettes of these objects, filtering these views with string cladding, and implementing rotating parts that alter the effect of these techniques, produces an ever changing relationship between the artifacts and the onlooker and enhances engagement with these objects on the viewer’s terms.
The overall massing of our chamber derives from a negotiation between the volumetric constraint of the Cairo tile, the geometry of the vessel, and rotational mechanics. It is composed of three static exterior frames and two nested cores at the center that rotate independently. Vessels are placed in different spatial conditions throughout the project, one statically within the innermost rotating core, one dynamically in in the outermost rotating core, and another statically in an exterior frame to decentralize the organization of the chamber and minimize the hierarchy between the chamber’s components and the vessels themselves.
String is used to further confound the spatial definition of the chamber. Applied with a variable density it reveals and conceals the artifacts to the viewer. At times string aligns with the profiles of these chunks, and at other moments define new volumetric conditions not inherent to the arced formal logic of the frames, that serve to frame these vignettes further. A uniform string type is used across the project to further obscure the exact boundaries between frames, and allow misreadings as the what these boundaries could be.
The rotating cores allow instances in opacity, transparency, alignment, and disorder to be dynamically manipulated by the viewer. Numerous configurations create vantage points fluctuate between legibility and illegibility, and allow qualities of the vessels to fluctuate in and out of focus, and allow an engagement with the artifacts to be determined by the viewers engagement with the chamber. The chamber champions an active relationship between the viewer and the artifact.