The Dominant Void

Immersive installation
12m * 12m* 4m
Yale School of Architecture
2018

Individual Project

A tradition inherited from Charles Moore, the Dominant Void is an exercise in space making in which the space devised is more palpably present, more powerfully assertive and potent than whatever it is that physically defines it. Where its physical definitions stripped away, what remains might be a compressed atmosphere of currents, vortexes, whirlpools, and back eddies.

There is an architectural, corporal kind of void, defined by boundaries between spaces, by physical materials - walls, floors, and ceilings.

There is also a human, experiential kind of void, defined by boundaries between people, by psychology and physiology - the reaches of our body, the experiences of sound, scent, and most peculiarly, the extents of our eyesight.

It occured to me that what constituted the intangible void surrounding our body is perhaps not the body, but ultimately, our mind, our fear of exposure and affliction balanced with our desire for human connection and intimacy.

In this installation, a meandering maze of physical boundary at head height obscures the face, the eyes, and the identity of its participants. Whenever a person moves around, the airflow his or her body creates generates a series of gentle ripples that permeate and lingers throughout the maze. It compresses and expands, ever in motion, introducing many “currents and vortexes” to one’s experience of own body space, and of the presence of others.

Participants discovered many spontaneous moments of privacy as well as voyeurism, solitude as well as intimacy.