NEVER ABSOLUTE ALWAYS RELATIVE
MASTER PROJECT
HEAD Geneva
Tutor : Dominic Robson
2021
Images © Raphaelle Mueller, Rachel Hoffmann
"NEVER ABSOLUTE ALWAYS RELATIVE" is a three-part installation addressing the relativity of visual perception and creating an alternative reading of our visual world.
There is ecstasy in paying attention. There is beauty in attempting to disentangle the simplest and most mundane things. There is sensitivity in trying to make sense of the world, and potentially navigate its complexities with a little more certainty.
The work consists of a three-part installation that can be understood in the context of a communication piece allowing an expanded understanding of our perception. Each immersive installation functions as a demonstrative tool and is a materialization of a specific outer condition that makes our visual experience relative.
The first installation addresses the importance of a present light source. When there is no light, no light can reflect off any object, nothing becomes perceptible. However, when light is present, it travels through reflection along the surfaces of multiple objects, making these visible to us. This principle of light as a necessity for visual perception is being materialized with multiple mirrors, making reflections appear on the outside wall.
This second piece demonstrates how our visual perception depends on our positioning towards the object, but also towards the source of light. When we change our position under the same light circumstance, what we see changes. When we keep our position but the positioning of the light source changes, what we perceive still changes, making evident that perspective defines visual perception as relative.
This last installation materializes the condition of meteorological influences. How we see things in natural sunlight can vary depending on interferences of elements like clouds or rain. Through demonstrating this condition with a color spectrum appearing only when direct sunlight is at disposition it becomes evident that meteorology is another condition that makes our visual perception relative.
