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optical flat
optical flat
optical flat © National Museum of Art, Osaka



A perpendicular metal shaft, with two liquid crystal monitors, as though impaled upon it, and on each of them, a tapered magnifying magnifier made of glass fiber. On the displays thousands of image fragments, moments of daily life, spill out in a high speed blur, magnified or compressed through optical fiber tapers** (like a band of optic nerves; their forms even resembling eye balls) mounted on top, presented flat and sharp. The excess of images, as a metaphor of memory, are visualized in high resolution, moment by moment, presenting "now" on the timeline of the space's linearity. The optical and visual images seem outputted from memory to apparition by this machinic "eye". This installation suggests an inversion of seeing the "eye", in order to perceive images from the inside out. Collection of the National Museum of Art, Osaka.

"Optical flats" are optical-grade glass structures lapped and polished to be extremely flat on one or both sides, capable of detecting variations to within 1/10th of a light wave, and used to measure the flatness of optical lenses, in spectrometry, etc.

**"Optical fiber tapers are optical fibers with a greater diameter at one end than the other. Since the pixel number at both ends are the same, the images present either larger or smaller.