Chiasmus is EVLer Stephen Cady’s MFA thesis research project; it is a responsive and dynamically reflective, two-sided volumetric projection surface that embodies phenomenological issues such as the formation and reception of images, observer and machine perception and the dynamics of the screen as a space of image reception. It consists of a square grid of 64 individually motorized cube elements engineered to move linearly. Each cube is controlled by custom software that analyzes video imagery for luminance values and sends these values to the motor control mechanisms to coordinate the individual movements. The resolution of the sculptural screen from the individual movements allows its volume to dynamically alter, providing novel and unique perspectives of its mobile form to an observer.

Chiasmus stems from the artist’s interest in programming and building physical computing applications, and the idea of the translatable nature of digital data that would allow for the generation of physical movement. Working primarily with visual media, Chiasmus investigates the formation of imagery and its aesthetic reception and perception. A main inspiration for this work are the stage designs and World Expo installations of Josef Svoboda and the expanded cinema environments of Peter Weibel, Jeffrey Shaw, and Stan VanDerBeek. Of primary interest is the dynamics of light interacting with the different depths and surface materials, and the transformation of the projected image.

Chiasmus incorporates the projection of video imagery onto a three-dimensional surface that is also dynamically mobile and kinetically responsive to the projected light source. The result is a dialogic exchange between the moving surface and the projected imagery, that forms a generative process and produces an evolving and ultimately unpredictable outcome.