Hong Sungchul’s 3D Illusion That Makes Perfect Sense

Recognized for his experiential body of work made using a wide range of technology and media, Seoul-based artist Hong Sungchul explores a new age of social interaction through his celebrated String Mirrors interactive series. Breaking the codes of traditional two-dimensional art, Sungchul’s optical illusion-inducing works were created using hundreds of printed elastic strings that, when combined, create three-dimensional images. The sculpture-cum-photographs depict ghostly, intricate and contrasted portraits of the human body that morph and move depending on the position from which one views it.

String Mirrors employs techniques used in optical and kinetic art forms to engage interaction and warped perception from the audience, eventually leading them to create their own reality from their individual viewing experience. Never fully revealing itself, viewers are prompted to explore the work in different ways either by moving around it or by changing their field of vision to create their own full picture. Sungchul’s “use of numerous staggered elastic strings […] communicates his unique concept of visual consciousness. The broken images interlace and transform to reveal a final image, incomplete until the dynamic interaction of the viewer.” In inviting the audience to view it from different perspectives, the 3D image forces them to leave behind their normal visual perception.

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