OBSCURA
Published:
Description:
Obscura is an interactive installation that investigates the perceptual relationship between light, darkness, and spatial cognition. Human visual perception relies heavily on illumination to interpret depth and three-dimensional form. In conditions of darkness, the eye’s ability to accurately resolve spatial relationships is significantly diminished. This work deliberately engages this perceptual limitation. The installation is to be experienced at nighttime. When viewed frontally, a carefully composed arrangement of linear and planar elements produces a perspectival alignment that generates the illusion of depth. This apparent three-dimensionality emerges not from volumetric form, but from the viewer’s visual system actively reconstructing space where none physically exists. Through this controlled manipulation of light, shadow, and alignment, Obscura foregrounds the role of the human visual sensory system in fabricating spatial experience under conditions of limited information. Under daylight conditions, the luminous effect of the installation is less pronounced. Nevertheless, the perspectival illusion remains legible, while the material and structural qualities of the work become more prominent. In this state, the installation shifts emphasis from perceptual ambiguity toward formal clarity, allowing the geometry, construction, and spatial composition of Obscura to be more fully appreciated.
Client: Ontario Place Corporation
Funding: Government of Ontario
Location: 955 Lake Shore Blvd West, Toronto, ON M6K 3B9, Canada
Collaborators: Anton Skorischenko, Stephen Baik, Robert Lee
Photographs: (Photos: 1-4, 7-8) Yasmin Alsamarrai | (Photos: 5-6) John Nguyen