Designed by American design collective Pneuhaus, ‘Fabric Prism’ is an inflatable immersive color installation built around the fundamental properties of light and color. Outside, red, blue, and green fabric panels filter light through an inflated membrane where color wavelengths combine, producing an iridescent, subtle color gradient on the white surface inside.
The technique of creating iridescence through geometric arrangement of material is inspired by the phenomena of structural color. The way many organisms in nature produce color is not through pigment at all, but through microscopically structured surfaces fine enough to alter the visible light reflecting back off of them. This phenomena of varying color can be seen in many bird feathers as well as butterfly wings.
The Fabric Prism acts as an interactive diagram for viewers to place themselves relative to this effect. As you walk around the structure, different perspectives grant you varying combinations of the red, blue and green panels on the outside. On the inside, all of the colors are constantly shifting throughout the day relative to the position of the sun. In an increasingly digital world, this pavilion seeks to highlight the intrinsic qualities of light and color which are at the foundations of all that we can perceive.
The installation was put up on June the 3rd, 2016, as part of PVDFest: a festival celebrating international arts in Providence, Rhode Island in the US.
all images courtesy of Pneuhaus