Robert Henke
Destructive Observation Field - Installation - 2014
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 16
Installation
A bright multicolor laser beam points at a black reflective sheet of plastic hanging freely from the ceiling. Most of the light is absorbed by the plate, turned into heat. A small part is reflected to a white screen. The heat creates slight deformations of the plate that lead to complex reflections. Since the laser beam scans the plate in slow random movements the shape of the surface is constantly modified. The light patterns on the projection screen make the process visible. The same intensive ray of light that allows to observe these spatial decompositions also destroys them when the process is repeated too often. There is no strict separation between ‘writing’ the deformations to the plate or ‘reading’ the landscape. The observation process is destructive. The installation behaves like a living organism, it creates expanding and contracting forms that have a semi-organic appearance. During the course of the exhibition the deformations add up, resulting in a more and more complex surface structure. The visible shapes will get more detailed and fragmented. The density of the stored information on the black plate increases. A computer program determines the movements of the laser beam and the slight changes in intensity. This software also creates a sonic layer, informed by the beam position and its momentary speed. A dense stream of sonic particles surrounds the spectator and forms a sonic counterpart of the installation’s colorful visual appearance.
