Dezeen Magazine

Threshold by Allison Urban

Graduate multimedia artist Allison Urban has sent us images from her gallery installation called Threshold.

threshold-by-allison-urban-6.jpg

The installation consists of two back lit geometric structures on either side of a room that form a pathway in between.

threshold-by-allison-urban-1.jpg

Threshold was part of Urban's thesis project and was on display at the University of Washington in June.

threshold-by-allison-urban-16.jpg

Photographs are by Julia Bruk.

Here is some more text from Allison Urban:

--

In her gallery installation, Threshold, Allison Urban explores opposing epochs in human evolution, past and future, using architecture and language design to create an environment that at once feels archaic and futuristic.

threshold-by-allison-urban-7.jpg

Drawing aesthetic reference from universally emergent patterns in our geological, biological and computational histories, Urban crafted a structure that seems to span from our earliest days as cave-dwellers, to the future worlds of our Utopian science fiction.

threshold-by-allison-urban-8.jpg

Lines of lights emanating from a hidden source wash onto the installation room walls, amplifying the geometric aesthetic of the two main structural components positioned on either side.

threshold-by-allison-urban-11.jpg

The negative space between the structural components implies a pathway, heightening the viewer's natural inclination to investigate the source of the light.

threshold-by-allison-urban-13.jpg

Urban utilizes this inclination, sending the viewer on an exploratory arc, ending with a reveal of the light's source as esoteric patterns.

threshold-by-allison-urban-17.jpg

Although written in an impenetrable language of light patterns, the series of backlit inscriptions seem to suggest an embedded communication system, a re-evaluation of our communicative origins, as if our early history was re-mediated through technology; a past future or future past.

threshold-by-allison-urban-10.jpg

The overall result is a space that resonates with a sense of fractured temporality and esoteric acuity.

threshold-by-allison-urban-9.jpg

Threshold was completed for Urban's BFA thesis. It was on display last month as part of a student exhibition for the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media

threshold-by-allison-urban-3.jpg

Allison Urban graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Art and Experimental Media, where she studied experimental video, digital sound synthesis and mechatronics. She is interested in exploring the fusion of experimental literature, architecture and cinema in art and design.