Claire Lee – Looking Outwards – 11

Filtered Transparencies is an interactive installation created for the Paseo Arts Festival by architect and media artist Filipa Valente. I decided to write about Valente’s work because she runs a platform called limiLAB for experimentation in the fields of architecture, user experience design, and animation, which is interesting to me because of my interest in UI/UX. With this piece in particular, Valente really focused on making her audience ponder about their relationship to the space around them by immersing them into a light-generated hologram-like environment. I thought it was really interesting that she used a mix of art and technology to create a commentary on how people perceive reality, how they fit into their own generated world, and how that perception is so easily manipulated.

The installation is created in a 3-dimensional space, with multiple payers of projections adding to the complexity of the piece. Each element (different shapes or lines formed by the projections) also seems to receive influence from the viewer’s movements, so that no two viewers ever have the same experience. I think the algorithm behind this work probably involves something similar in concept to our text rain assignment, where objects created by code are interacting with input from a camera.