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Client: Alexandra Office of the Arts
Location: Alexandria, VA, United States
Completion date: 2019
Project Team
Artist
SOFTlab
Client
Alexandra Office of the Arts
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Overview
Mirror Mirror was commissioned by the City of Alexandria’s Office of the Arts. The artwork takes the form of an opened circle, 25 feet in diameter and 8 feet high, that visitors can walk inside and around. This structure in-the-round, like a lighthouse, is both a place to look outward at your surroundings and a beacon to be seen from afar and watched. The materials and interactive nature of the artwork reference the special type of lens used at Alexandria’s own historic Jones Point Lighthouse – called the Fresnel lens – the most advanced lens technology of the 1800s, which used a series of prisms to concentrate the light source and direct it into a narrow horizontal beam that was projected outward. The circular array of two-way mirrored chambers reflects a panorama of the surrounding historical context and river on the exterior while the interior multiplies the reflection of pedestrians in a full spectrum of color as they enter the artwork. At night, sound responsive LEDs in make the chambers transparent and turn them into infinity boxes, creating a forest of interactive light.
Goals
Mirror Mirror was the inaugural installation for an annual program to select an artist to create an installation for a new waterfront park in Old Town Alexandria. The goal is to activate the new park with artwork that addresses the historical context in a progressive way. Located at the end of King Street on the banks of the Potomac River, the park and artwork act as a beacon at the end of a historically rich corridor.
Process
The process was unique because we were selected based on our previous work rather than a proposal, which is typically the case with public artwork commissions. We developed the project after a site visit and meeting with people form the local community, the tourism board, and visiting many historical sites. This is how we prefer to work rather than simply producing a proposal based on a brief without any engagement with the client, community, or context. These visits and meetings directly led to the main inspiration for the project, which was a historic lighthouse on a train just south of the site.