"Let There Be Light"
Exhibit of Holographic Works
Institute of Optical Sciences, University of Toronto
Exhibit of Holographic Works
Institute of Optical Sciences, University of Toronto
Presented during Nuit Blanche 2014, this exhibition was staged in the Trinity Chapel, transforming the space into a dialogue between centuries-old architecture and contemporary optical technology.
The installation positioned the holographic works at the chapel’s traditional focal point, the altar, subverting its symbolic role while amplifying its spatial authority. Here, the precision and technicality of holography, a medium built from captured and reconstructed light, stood in deliberate contrast to the chapel’s Gothic stonework, stained glass, and sacred geometry.
This juxtaposition underscored the tension between the permanence of tradition and the transience of light, framing technology not as an intrusion into the sacred but as a new lens through which to experience it. Visitors encountered the works within the hushed resonance of the chapel, where shifting light fields replaced iconography, and the act of looking became an almost devotional engagement with the intangible.
The nave of the chapel was sectioned using human-scale figures clad in reflective surfaces. Broken CDs were applied across their forms, chosen for their fragmented, prismatic reflections and their pseudo-holographic quality, which reinforced the exhibition’s central theme and created a sense of visual continuity. Projectors and additional lighting, borrowed from the Optics Department, were used to shape the atmosphere. Light played across the chapel’s high walls, transforming their vertical expanse into shifting surfaces for projection, further dissolving the boundary between architectural permanence and the ephemeral nature of light.
