This is a conceptual art project suggestion for a project deriving from the sextant research looking to create a physical link between worlds.

Physical link is a project proposal that uses our connection to materialistic things (and is trying to avoid our disconnection to digital things). The idea is evolving from a research on Sextants. I found how physical objects in some contexts have the ability to connect us to emotions related to certain events, even if not experienced by the individual that is ‘connecting’ with the object. Working with Sextants, an 18th century instrument invented for celestial navigation, I was surprised to discover that people still ‘consume’ sextants today, in two main ways: One is as an ornament/collectable item with an emotional value, and two, in sailing a replacement in situations of no power or no satellite reception.

This could definitely be done through screens and cameras, but this proposal is looking to avoid the digital option and only use a “physical” one, in order to enhance the feel of it being “real”.

A tunnel of mirrors that physically connects between places/people/cultures

THE SEXTANT RESEARCH

Understanding the principle on which a Sextant work on, I understood that a manipulation of light is happening, to achieve a situation in which two object, that are physically in different positions, will look like they are at the same position, and we measure what we did (the manipulation) to get to that. 

PROCESS

I was first interested in how a sextant work, mechanically, physically, how it was used for celestial navigation. I Purchased one, I spoke to “Lost at Sea” curator. And then, different directions started to emerge. A research about goniometry brought me to discover many technologies based on the same principal. In medicine (e.g. sextant-biopsy, the angle in which a person starts to loose balance), crystallography (angles between faces of a crystal), materials scientists (the angle in which water encounter material) sound waves angles and more.

Then I built my own version of a sextant. Using the same principal I made an instrument that measures angles between 2 objects using lasers.

OBJECTS ARE A TIME MACHINE

“The analysis of objects offers a window into social reality – rests on the fundamental relationship between objects and time. Objects do not only exist in time. They exist through time and off time as well. Indeed, objects overcome time (at least temporarily) by freezing it in a tangible instantiation. It makes time into something that can be held, observed, marked, smelled.” Owen Whooley

Connecting the pieces I got to PHYSICAL LINK, Using similar technologies and creating a gate a tunnel a physical connection.