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Pipilotti Rist’s Pixel Forest is an exhibition of various works by Rist spanning her entire career. “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is a hanging LED installation that was a collaboration between Rist and Kaori Kuwabara, a lighting designer. This piece consists of 3,000 handmade plastic globes that are irregular in shape. Each LED is controlled by a video signal and represents one pixel from the video that is being played. The lights change at different speeds according to the pace of the video. The entire exhibition showcases Rist’s career as a video artist. “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is one of her most recent pieces. The other installations in the exhibition that were created before this one have a very vintage quality to them. It is almost as if “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is in a way a transition marker in her career where she starts to experiment with new mediums and technology. Despite the use of new techniques, this piece is very much like her past works in that it is extremely immersive and creates a sensual experience.
This project cracks open the door to a future where people may be able to soon be physically immersed within technology. It is probable to say that Rist and Kuwabara were able to find a script that did the basics of what they were trying to do and then added on to the script to make the changes that they needed.
The idea of being physically surrounded by pixels of a video is very intriguing. Walking through such a space is very sensual and calming. I admire Rist’s ability to really think out of the box and present such a spatially experiential project.
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/pipilotti-rist-pixel-forest
https://www.mfah.org/exhibitions/pipilotti-rist-pixel-forest-and-worry-will-vanish