Nicole Weisz

Tape 4 and Tape 5

These installations refers to the way the building controls the way we see the space and how we move around it, exploring the ideological theme of restriction. Their form and materiality seem to suggest another institutional space. The diamond grid - references the ‘diagrid’ - the diamond grid of glazed glass, often used in contemporary architecture, e.g. the new Kings Cross station platform. Hal Foster describes the diagrid as an ‘ideological form’ that signals ‘technocratic optimism’. The diamond pattern is ubiquitous in the urban environment: victorian ironwork, metal grills and fencing, to the painted yellow road markings at box junctions.

The vertical installation is designed to subvert the panopticon effect - to break up the building’s site lines, to affect how we see and experience the space so as to affect the psychological and emotional quality of the space. It plays with its geometry - from both the front and back views.

Although the material used in the installations is light, it suggests solidity and the existence of a screen. I also wanted to intimate the feeling that, in the new building, we have become institutionalised.