When Looking Becomes Capturing
An artwork is displayed in a freestanding glass case. The transparent glass provides an unobstructed view of the work. When someone points a smartphone at the glass case, the installation responds: the glass turns opaque. The artwork remains physically present but disappears from view. Once the smartphone is pointed away, the glass turns transparent again.
An attempt to capture the artwork changes what everyone present can see. The installation does not prohibit photography or ask visitors to put away their phones. Instead, it creates a moment in which looking and capturing cannot coexist.
“We don’t ask visitors to put away their phones. The installation lets them experience what happens when looking becomes capturing,” say Ralf Lambie and Gera Pronk.
The detection system does not record images or store any data. The work centres on a single experience: the moment the artwork disappears from view.
Exploring Attention
In For Your Eyes Only, Ralf Lambie and Gera Pronk bring together design, computer science and visual art. The technology remains in the background, while the experience itself takes centre stage.
For Ralf Lambie, For Your Eyes Only builds on his ongoing exploration of smartphones and attention. Lambie previously developed SAMEN, a tablecloth with signal-blocking pockets for smartphones. In SAMEN, the phone disappears; in For Your Eyes Only, it is the artwork that disappears.
Gera Pronk developed the technology that enables the glass case to respond physically when a smartphone is detected. In her work, computer science meets a more poetic approach to technology.
