studio:01

Mirrors as spatial devices create the perception that a space is larger than its physical boundaries. This "trick" is used in many small strip mall restaurants, which are typically situated in long narrow spaces, to enhance or expand the feel of the dining area. In this paticular built environment the mirror has a very similar effect. The mirrors serve two purposes. One purpose is to create and expand. The second is to hide and disguise. Both have a variety psychological effects upon the inhabitants.



The mirror replaces the window. Or does it simply mimick the window? When you remove the still screen shot from the diagram one is able to focus on the arrangement of the "windows". In the diagram below, the blue plane represent the living spaces windows. The locations of the mirrors in the built environment are the same locations that one could expect a normal window to be.



These windows create an environment that is outside of the inhabited space, offering views into that environment, much the same way that a window does. The red planes offer a suggested fixed plane that exists in this created environment of the outside.

When we take into account the functional needs of the fish bowl experiment, normal windows would not function well. Enter the second function of the mirror to diguise and hide the peering eyes of the observer (camera). What does it mean to inhabit a "windowless" space? Is the BB7 house a windowless space? I would answer that yes and no. It has no view of the outside world as a normal window would, but it does have windows into other spaces. While mere copies or reflections of the inhabited space, they are dynamic.

Dynamic space versus static object.

Constantly changing perspectives are based upon the view point. The yellow planes in these two diagrams below depict planes based upon the eye level and position of the individual, who is in a constant state of motion. These planes could only truly exist if we stop the motion of the film clip.





The key here is to understand that we experience these planes as the are created and uncreated during the continual shifting of the view point. Through the simple act of walking across the room or turning/tilting your head, you visually create and uncreate the percieved environment within the mirror. The space outside the "window" has its own life and vitality.