Projected Representations of a Room

During my first year of college, I spent a lot of time in an enclosed study room in the basement of an academic building. I began to examine the conceptual problem of representing the room as a personal record of my experience in the space. While in the room, I created a series of images and sculptures using various methods of spatial representation. The work that came out of this line of inquiry stemmed from previous investigations into world maps. I examined the political/ontological implications of the assumed objectivity of the mathematical projection of 3D space onto a 2D surface.

I began by creating a detailed three-dimensional computer model, which I rendered to mimic photos I took of the space. Then, I choose a central point in the room that would function as the "eye" (0,0,0), the center of the representational systems I would implement. I recorded the space by creating an equirectangular projection which I colored to resemble the computer rendering. Next, I tied twine tied between the eye-point and the room's corners, which defined the walls of the space, resulting in a collection of different lengths of string that referenced the room's dimensions. Finally, I intersected these lines with an Octahedron to create an Octohedronic projection, which I then fabricated using plywood and a light bulb.