North, South, West, East. A meter, a foot, a mile, an inch, a pixel. Much of our composure often results from certainties, superstructures, units of measurement, from the knowledge of space and time. But at other times it’s necessary to surrender to the idea that not everything can be measured, or universally knowable. The installation Infinity Room by Turkish artist Refik Anadol was recently presented at the Zorlu Performing Arts Center in Istanbul, who, as part of a larger project on immersive reality, designed a room where a visitor could have the perception of being physically in a ‘non-physical’ world. The projection of algorithmically generated 3D animations creates a series of light patterns dancing on the walls of the room, eluding human perception and creating the illusion of other spatial dimensions. This is a room for a journey that is not only visual, but also musical and sensory, that brings us elsewhere, carrying the visitor through a changing reality that is unreliable and yet somehow convincing. This is an experience that strains rationality and the constant human search for reference points. A place, in effect, where time and space lose their analogue characteristics of measurability – an infinity room. Benedetta Sabatini

 

Refik Anadol – Infinity Room