Like those pin art toys where you can create images by pushing out certain pins, this mirror recreates your image by using hundreds of spokes and motors to re-align and replicate itself to look like the thing standing in front of it. It’s a mind trip seeing little spokes making a bigger image.
The ‘Angles Mirror’ is an interactive project by artist Daniel Rozin and can be seen at Bitforms Gallery in NYC. The entire mirror is 234cm x 213cm x 91cm and has 465 spokes, various motors, a video camera, control electronics, custom software, microcontroller and steel armature to recreate the effect. Rozin explains:
The “Angles Mirror” rejects the idea of building a picture based on relative lightness and darkness. Instead, it explores a system of linear rotation that indicates the direction of an object’s contour. A wall-mounted sculpture, the “Angles Mirror” is a sharp triangular block of steel, dotted with yellow indicator arms that pivot. Based on the isometric grid, its structure favours the patterns and angles found in an equilateral triangle. The arms, which do not have the ability to change brightness or luminosity, use input from a camera and reconstruct the view with areas of varying angles. The negative space surrounding a viewer is translated into horizontal lines on the picture plane. Rather than creating a photorealistic image, the three-dimensional movement of a figure is represented, visualising optical flow as viewer’s proximity to the sculpture changes. A nuanced contour results, as the viewer shifts back and forth, altering how the structure of space is perceived. Similar to “Fan Mirror”, in the “Angles Mirror”, the sequence of movement across the picture plane is directed in part by its audience. When the viewer walks away from the work, or chooses to view the sculpture from a distance, a series of predefined images and transitions cover the object’s surface.