Jinyong Park
Feel the Invisible Frame of Images
Digital display, Image, Atmosphere, Frame/Apparatus
The project studies the potential of digital display as an architectural surface by exposing and exaggerating the materiality of digital images. It specifically focuses on a digital display and its images as a medium that frames the way we experience the world.
Our daily life depends on digital displays such as smartphones, monitors, and TVs. Digital displays are almost disappearing with its hardware getting lighter and thinner, and the resolution getting excessively high. Heidegger's figurative concept of ‘disappearing tool’ is being realized in a literal sense. At the same time, the dependency on them is growing larger. The digital display, as an apparatus, frames our gestures, behaviors, and even thoughts. This omnipresent control mechanism is barely noticeable.
In this project, the hidden substrate of the display is exposed and exaggerated through corrugation, and corrugated layers of varying opacities are cross-overlayed to make a physical architectural surface. The image of the enlarged pixel structure, the image about image itself, is projected on the layered surface to form an ephemeral interior atmosphere. The vulnerability of a projected image, sensitive to the physical surroundings, creates a unique spatial experience.
The digital image as a medium, as an invisible framing mechanism, is further studied through the design of a building, a museum of media. The idea of a frame appears in different architectural elements such as a roof, ramp, and corridor that define the boundary of rooms. The building provides a space for people to appreciate the optical aesthetic experience and further question the materiality of digital images as an apparatus.