The piece consists of a rotating mirror and a
real-time (live) image of the mirror projected back on to the
wall. The limits of representation is investigated by creating a
conflict between representation and the subject. In the projected
image, every time the mirror faces directly towards the camera, a hot
white light bursts out of the frame of the projected image and
encroaches into the represented space of the installation. The viewer
is one step removed, looking at the representation of the space he/she
occupies from the real space outside of representation. The viewer
sees the projected image as an authentic representation as the image
echoes everything he sees in the actual space. Even the viewer
himself. But when the mirror points directly at the camera, a hot
white light bursts only into the represented space and the viewer is
left to reconcile the contradiction as the light never enters his
space. The light is nowhere to be seen in the real space the viewer
occupies. For a brief moment, for the duration of time the viewer is
reconciling the contradiction, the white light slips outside of
representation and exists somewhere between our real space and the
representational space. The light embodies the impossibility of
representation.
Copyright 2012, Akihiko Miyoshi // miyos "at" reed "dot" edu