It wasn’t out of a thorough consideration that we take the corner room as the installation place. Yet the enclosed space with complete transparency provides us with a starting point. From the idea of exaggerating the transparency emerges the idea of using mirrors. Mirrors deconstruct a space and obscure its own existence. As the installation takes place within a space with working students and faculties, we didn’t want it to be too conspicuous but to remain silent and ordinary on the outside but welcome passers-by to watch.
The installation talks to the Nether in three ways: through representing the form of interrogation, constructing a hidden identity and conveying a feeling of love. When talking about our impressions on the Nether, the concept of an interrogation room and the relationship between the two people in the room was the theme that always emerges. By putting on a mirror helmet, the interrogator hides herself, while the person being interrogated sees her own reflection instead of the interrogator’s face. The questions we used are from The 36 Questions That Lead to Love. Surprisingly, audiences commented that they felt the two in the room falling in love without us claiming the intention.
Two biggest challenge that we encountered are: 1) to get the cube and the mirrors hang at the right place so people can see their own reflections, 2) to prevent the two participants from knowing each other’s identity. We struggled to install the mirrors properly partly because of the limitations of the space and partly because it is not easy to customize the height of them according to every participant’s height. While the mirror cube works for the three of us, it is hard for people much taller than me to see their reflections. Another crucial point in our installation is that the two participants should not know each other’s identity before and after their experience, which didn’t work very well during the exhibition. It would be better if we could digitally incorporate selecting participants into the installation by making a lottery system before hand. However, as an experiment I do think it presents our ideas well in the end.!