A video interactive installation project, currently in progress, the piece looks into the intensive qualities of the eye contact and the impact it might provoke.

Entering a dark space, the viewer comes across a small box hanged onto the wall at his eye level. The front part of the box is made of semitransparent Plexiglas material and the side part from transparent Plexiglas. From the side one could see a small construction inside the box, composed of a magnifier and a surface for projection, suspended with metal holders from the wall. A projector located behind the wall beams a video sequence onto the surface, throughout a hole in the wall. As the viewer approaches from the front, he sees only lingering light through the milk-colored surface. In the central part of this surface, a small hole is covered with a sliding cap. Once open, the viewer is confronted with video images of a contacting eye-pupil, triggered by his own eye movement or blinking. Simultaneously as the pupil begins to contract in very slow motion, a sharp high-pitch sound
comes up and recedes. If the viewer keeps his gaze steady, the video will run backwards until the eye shuts and remains vibrating.

Blinking and saccades (fast movements of the eyes), driven by biological needs, provide for a constantly renewing perception of image. “Ordinarily, the end of blinking movement or at the end of any saccade is always the beginning of a new process of seeing” . It is a constant process of stimulation, of transmission, provoking emotional reformations behind the surface of the eye.

With Double Saturation I wanted the object (the content of the box) to become a subject. To amplify the tiny moment of eye contact, which could be as intense as looking at the sun at its full brightness, a reference inspired by a science fiction movie called Sunshine (2007) by Danny Boyd, where fascinating scenes show characters from a darkened Earth embark on a sunbound spaceship, and, as they’re getting closer to the Sun, daring to gaze at the sun behind sun-protecting screenshields while progressively reducing the protection level to feel the light deeper and deeper inside…