Modern Guru
Modern Guru is a translucent ovoid with four huge digital eyes, floating above a ceremonial ring of LEDs. From his mouth flows a ream of absurdist messages, and in a statement about the true nature of lived experience, a new message is delivered when visitors take a photo of Modern Guru – a missive produced only for those who seek to photograph life rather than live the moment. This immersive new media art installation uses the intersection of art and technology to explore modern paths to happiness through unique interactions with characters along a mystical journey of discovery. Visitors are asked to commit to the path – a tight and winding trail with subtle points of connection along the way – a glowing landscape of oversized, whimsical mountains that chant incantations and blink innocently from digital eyes.
Having communed with the Guru, visitors then weave their way back through this warped and strange world full of illusions and delusions, perceptions and deceptions, all the while bathing in luminescent light; embracing big, gentle forms; and following their own path up the pink tongue staircase to meet the one who oversees the whole fantastic dominion, the Sun God.

Infection Drivers
Infection Drivers (2019) explores the body under attack. In this work, a CGI figure struggles to move and breathe in a translucent suit, which takes her body through transmutations of stereotypically masculine and feminine physiques as it inflates and deflates. In a time of increased public surveillance through facial-recognition software and biometric data  mining, Cooper’s high-definition world invites us to investigate and perhaps find freedom in the technologies often used to constrain us.

LIGHT

“Helen Pashgian is a pioneer and pre-eminent member of the California Light and Space Movement. Her signature forms include columns, discs and spheres in delicate and rich coloration, often with an isolated element suspended, embedded or encased within. Pashgian’s innovative application of industrial epoxies, plastics and resins effect semi-translucent surfaces that simultaneously filter and contain illumination. Activated by light, these sculptures resonate in form and spatiality, both inner and outer.” Dimitris Lempesis

Light Space Modulator

“This piece of lighting equipment is a device used for demonstrating both plays of light and manifestations of movement. The model consists of a cube-like body or box, 120 x 120 cm in size, with a circular opening (stage opening) at its front side. On the back of the panel, mounted around the opening are a number of yellow, green, blue, rot, and white-toned electric bulbs (approximately 70 illuminating bulbs of 15 watts each, and 5 headlamps of 100 watts). Located inside the body, parallel to its front side, is a second panel; this panel too, bears a circular opening about which are mounted electric lightbulbs of different colors. In accordance with a predetermined plan, individual bulbs glow at different points. They illuminate a continually moving mechanism built of partly translucent, partly transparent, and partly fretted materials, in order to cause the best possible play of shadow formations on the back wall of the closed box”. László Moholy-Nagy

daemon
The reactive audio-visual installation Daemon (in collaboration with Hansi Raber) analyzes the never-sleeping and permanent alertness of an artificial intelligence. Consisting of three semi-translucent, spatial shifted surfaces, the installation represents a solid wall when entering the space. When no visitor is in the room, the installation is in balance and visualizes infinite planned tasks and processes: rational beauty. When visitors enter the room, the installation reacts and the perfect procedure gets more and more distorted. When the visitor walks into, through and behind the surfaces, his silhouette gets merged with the projected visuals and absorbed by the surfaces.

LOVERS
Computer-controlled, five-channel video/sound installation with five video projectors, eight-channel sound system, and slide projectors […] As an image, a pair of lovers often suggests a castle of exclusion. With the sexual liberation of the last few decades, the word now has more to do with physical coupling than with the sublimity of “true love.” AIDS has added a new dimension of wariness to this pairing. The life-size dancers in Lovers are drained of life. Projected onto the black walls of a square room, the naked figures have a spectral quality. Their movements are simple and repetitive. Back and forth, they walk and run with animal grace. Their actions become familiar over time, so that it is a surprise when two of the translucent bodies come together in a virtual embrace. These ostensible lovers–more overlapping than touching–are not physically entwined.

dementia simulator
This Dementia Simulator headset designed by Central Saint Martins graduate Di Peng lets wearers experience symptoms of the disease for themselves (+ movie). The helmet affects each of the senses, in an attempt to replicate many of the challenges faced by dementia sufferers. The translucent, egg-shaped device sits over the wearer’s entire head, and includes a mouthpiece, earpiece and screen that covers the eyes.

Tesseract
Tesseract is a collaboration between Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener. It is an evening-length presentation in 2 parts separated by an intermission: a 3D dance film featuring 7 dancers and a live proscenium performance with 6 dancers. The film offers speculative worlds and alternate possibilities in bold visual environments. The performance includes live-video capture with multiple cameras, mixed by Atlas and projected into the stage space. Images obscure and reveal moving bodies behind a translucent scrim, magnified and refracted by Atlas. Through collective action we forge a link between human ritual conjuring and new technological magic. Between the past and the future.

Schizophrenia
Sculptural, theatrical and designed according to an ideal of femininity, the collection of this young fashion designer was made with modern materials like neoprene and viscose.The folds present throughout the series evoke the lines of vase “Schizo”. Particularly the piece with the sleeveless coat, in which the spaces between pleats almost seem translucent, creating the effect of division, therefore suggesting an idea of schizophrenia, the concept of the collection.

Joint Effort
Reference and homage play another crucial role in Davila’s practice, and are evident in works such as Homage to the Square where the artist makes direct reference to Alber’s series of the same name by employing sculptural forms and utilizing the translucent qualities of glass to translate Alber’s works into three dimensional space.

Имме Ван Дер Хаак
Beyond the Body

“My work focuses on altering the human form by affecting its figure with just one simple intervention. Photos of the human body are printed onto translucent silk which will create the possibility of physically layering different bodies, ages, generations and identities. In a dance performance, the moving body manipulates the fabric so the body and the silk become one, distorting our perception or revealing a completely new physical form. The movement then brings this to life.”

These double exposed fashion images by Jin Chong Yu certainly explore the idea of a second skin, the translucent effect is magical. more…

Bubbles
Bubbles is an adaptable spatial pneumatic installation at an urban scale. The installation consists of large pneumatic volumes that inflate and deflate in reaction to the visitors coming to the site. If unoccupied the volume of the site is slowly filled by the spatially distributed sacks creating a translucent bubble translucent infill. As the occupants enter and move through the installation, they bump the bubbles ranging from 6′ to 8′ in diameter that fill the lower layer of the space. More activity opens up the space more making it navigable. Sensors in the bubbles cause a fan in the manifold to transfer air to the bubble.

ambient light
Project for a kiosk on the lakefront of Chicago. Waterfronts are special places. A meeting point between earth and sea, the horizon is exposed. More than elsewhere the sky is present, it illuminates and color permeates the place. The project aims to exacerbate this feeling by framing the views and accentuating the light of the moment.A translucent fabric filter diffuses the light, revealing the average color of the sky. This veil delimits the space and generates privacy. The fabric masks some of the context to better reveal its brightness. Inside a suspended fabric ring provides shade. The center of the roof is open to expose the sky. All you can see and connect with is the horizon and the sky.

Double Blind

Double Blind is Irwin’s response to the characteristic features of the main gallery at the Secession. The room’s absence of windows makes it a neutral container for art, its hermetically sealed quality enhancing the impression of a massive, isolated volume. The grid structure of the ceiling and floor underscore the room’s austere appearance and lend it rhythm. The world outside nonetheless becomes tangible through the daylight streaming in from above. The changing intensity of light in the room allows visitors to sense different times of day and what are frequently rapid changes in the weather. The installation Double Blind consists of thirty room-high frames with translucent fabric stretched over them following exactly the lines of the grids that define the room and thus forming three volumes. Depending on where the viewer is standing and on the direction and intensity of the light, the appearance of the installation changes, as does that of the room itself. The door to the garden behind the Secession building stands open, allowing the viewer to see and sense the world outside.

CLOCK

About-Time is a clock that challenges our power of perception and intuition. Featuring a constantly changing composition, through both color and form, it invites us to view the idea of time from a fresh perspective. Three translucent circles, which possess a logical visual hierarchy (the largest circle tells the hour, the smallest tells the second), pivot atop a larger white circle. The locations of the circles’ outer most points refer to the time. Traditional clocks, utilizing written numbers, rely on reading the information. This clock relies solely on visual information in the form of varying colors and shapes. Time is manifested into a new and purely visual language

Comprised of hundreds of translucent panels and shape-memory wire, Reef utilizes an interface fed by an RGB camera and special software to create an installation that responds to its audience. Choreographed in curling combinations that express both mechanical and natural examples of motion, the work physically reacts to a range of programmed criteria. Criteria can vary from simply the location and proximity of a participant to qualities such as the color of clothing, or whether participants are alone or in groups. The result is an animated environment which explores behavioral possibilities within soft, fluid motion and interaction. Once passive viewers are transformed into engaged users through this dynamic platform, which amplifies the relationship of inhabitants to their built environment.