Dazzle

Outer space is so far-off that, even with today’s booming space technology, I believe most people like myself cannot imagine having a chance of flying out of Earth. I never had a glimpse of a black hole or a star cluster – they are dazzling astronomy images that can only be found in popular science books. Compared to the sci-fi films that effortlessly lure us into the imaginary world, the objective existence given in science is perhaps more of a science fiction and more out of reach.

The Sun is our nearest celestial body. Be it a physical or psychological concept of distance, and even they are all equally out of reach, but every day I can at least look at them and feel them.

I have a bad habit. I always like to stare in trance at the uncomfortable dazzling light in spectacles such as the mirror by the window, the rear-view mirror of the scooter, or the light reflected from the building’s façade. Squinting from a certain angle, the dazzling light becomes a tunnel glistening in glows of rainbow from around. It is as if a tunnel for a connection between me and outer space, by the sunlight that bridges everyday life and the unknown, and to a faraway place.

By constructing an apparatus with gears and bearings and mounting it on an old camera lens, it allows a glass lens smeared with transparent fluids to rotate endlessly and captures light reflected from different everyday objects. Dazzling rays of light pierce through the apparatus and the lens, transforming sunlight into a cloud of light explosion akin to astronomy images as if they were magical light rays in the dark curtains of outer space. I attempt to reexperience and recognize a world at the intersection of everyday life and science.

The video is projected on a clear glass using rear projection and in this way the spectator can observe flashing lights from the images from different angles. The lights from the projector at the exhibition mimics the flashing sunlight as an echo of the sunlight in the video.