Through the Looking Glass- My Completed Project

 So the five weeks of this project are up. I had planned to make an installation / sculpture incorporating these lenses I made. Was I successful? Did I actually make something?
Yes! Here it is:

The main frame (which is literally holding everything together) is made from a test-tube stand and clamps that the lovely science technicians at college lent to me. I modified it slightly by using a long steel rod with grooves filed in to hang the lenses from. You may notice that it is in four different permutations in the above images. This is a property of my peice I really like and didn't really intend to happen.

The rustic aesthetic of the old science clamps worked very well with the lenses.

I used the science clamps to hold and position the lenses, giving the sculpture an infinite amount of variations and angles and combinations. This lets the 'user' position the sculpture in any way they want, enabling them to play and experiment with light (If someone were to buy this, I would like them to position it how they want to). Depending on how the components are arranged, different outcomes can be explored; Projection of light and shadows, movement, inversion, magnification and focusing of space & light.

Clockwise from top: coursemate, Jamie, interacting with my sculpture. Strip-lighting being focused onto the paper by the lens and warped by the swinging crystal. Lace projection viewed through the lenses.

I hope the sculpture makes viewers feel inclined to interact with it. And if they were to interact with it I'm sure they'd instantly start discovering the fascinating properties of light like some of my coursemates did. This is exactly what I had wanted to make; a device that allows people to easily and intuatively interact with and interpret light, this should give the user a huge insight into the properties of light as they can interact with it directly.

Light can be such a passive thing, we can't really interact with it. I am providing a way to bend and control it like a sixth sense.

Classmate, Minnie, having a look to see what she thinks.

I am communicating my own fascination and enjoyment when experimenting with light. I want the audience to view the world through the perspective of my piece and they can do this quite literally by simply looking through it an observing it's effects. This means that the surroundings of the sculpture are just as important as itself.

A first person perspective of the view from my sculpture

Overall, I am hugely pleased with my outcome. I feel that I have built something 'that could be seen in a gallery'. I feel that I have built something that communicates my perspective on light and I feel I have learnt a lot through the planning (or not planning),  experimentation and building of my piece.

Wooden lens disc frame

So for this installation I'm making I wanted a way to suspend some large glass lenses of mine. I consulted a tutor I've mentioned quite a few times on this blog, Young. We sat down with a pencil and a scrap of tracing paper and discussed and sketched how we could create a frame to sandwich the glass and could be suspended.

I love technical drawings.

We agreed that this would probably be the quickest and easiest way to construct a frame. By laser cutting, we could make the whole process precise, easily reproduced and even quicker. So I whipped out a ruler and started measuring the lenses then drew up some scale plans:

I then replicated this on Adobe Illustrator plus the 4mm bolt holes.

I use illustrator quite a lot. I enjoy the capabilities of vector graphics.

About ten minutes later and I had my first prototype! Let's try it on the lens!
Oh.. it just doesn't fit.
Damn.
Ten minutes and a few remeasurements and adjustments later and BAM:

Mmmm..  that crisp, burnt edge of laser cut wood. If there was one piece of machinery I could take home, it would have to be the laser cutter.

Wow! From conception to creation in under three hours! (Including breaks) This is what I love about computers and laser cutters. Time to try and construct it round the bolts using wing nuts.

Holy moly! I think this looks really sweet. The circular frame and wing nuts make the lens look like a port hole to another world.. like Alice theough the looking glass. The lens fits very snugly between the bolts and wood, the frame is perfect! I then threaded it up and hung it by my window. I think the frame has been a success, it has fulfilled my requitements and I think it actually adds to the lens by framing the view.