✹ Weekly material exploration - Polarization liner 
22nd February 2021
               
Another week went by and here comes the third week of February, I feel like this month went so fast comparing to January. In this week exploration, I’m looking at this cool yet weird plastic sheet - polarisation linear. I ordered it from amazon.co.uk at the suggestion of Oscar, my course tutor.

 Three layers of polarization sheet overlaping in different angle of their axis creates unusual effect

At first, it seems to be a typical plastic sheet that can change the colour when overlapped - I tried just 2 layers at first and found that I have to perpendicularly overlap them together to get a dark effect. It still seems understandable until I inserted the third layer in between the first two and make a 45-degree angle with both of them- weird thing happened. The space between the third layer seems to be lighter giving this unusual appearance.

Observation of the effect - playing and getting to know the material

I tried to understand the mechanism of this material - to explain briefly about this - the sheet has a polarisation axis that can polarise the light that goes through the sheet creating this unusual phenomenon. To be honest, after trying to understand it for a while by looking at the researches from different resources - I still don’t fully understand its mechanism. I will leave it like this for now as I think it’s an interesting material that I see the potential and can develop in another project. Yet, in this ‘Shininess - the uncertainty of energy’ - this material might not be the main one. All I do for now is get to know it by playing and observing it.

Explanation of this phenomenon ; 
⇲ http://alienryderflex.com/polarizer/

As seen below this material giving the audience this surprising and not-used-to-the-eye effect. Also, I think the rotation of the sheet is interesting in the way that it is the interaction between the audience and material. A movement that creates changes - the same thing as what I’m into.

  

Some idea has popped in my head during the observation - I can see it as a fan, I can see it as a mask which can make the wearer’s face appear and disappear by the movement of the body. I can see it as a kinetic sculpture that requires audience interaction in order to reveal something behind the sheet or just to create this cool effect.


Sketch for the mask idea

I’m thinking about inserting a motor that can rotate the sheet and create that effect on its own also but from my preference I like to include the viewer into the context - like ⇲sDaniel Rozin’s art work ‘When left alone my art is just a blank canvas. Once the viewer appears in front of it, my art becomes alive’ I’m touched by this idea and that’s where I’m going for.



Bitform gallery, New york by Daniel Rozin 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV8v2GKC8WA

For the polarisation sheet - my friend told me about this artist - ⇲ Austine Wood - who painted the light using a polarisation sheet as an eye to bringing her work to life. It creates this unexpected appearance when seeing the colour from colourless material like cellulose. Austine had been perfecting the way to manipulate the medium on her own technique and created these amazing artworks. It was the way to draw the viewer in. I like how she describes her work as something that you have to 'watch not look at' and that’s what I’m going for as well.

   Austine Woods - polarization sheet reveal colours of the colourlaess medium

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By exploring this material this week, I found that the subject of light and how can we manipulate it in the way that no one else can is the most surprising thing ever. Light is something that we can and can not see at the same time. It's all around us, it creates everything we visually perceive and it's unpredictable sometimes.

From the way polarisation sheet behave with each other when overlapped to the way Austine Woods had painted the light using polarisation sheet to reveal the colour. It is all amazing how our brain perceives light differently thought the same medium. I’m wondering how can I use this principle to adapt to my own practice. I’m so excited to watch the idea unfold through playing with material like this!