“The Ring” installation by French designer Arnaud Lapierre in the Plaza Vendôme in Paris, France played with the context of this urban space through reflections, light and the interaction of passers-by. This temporary piece was created for a 2011 Conference. It was an aggregation of offset mirrored blocks stacked to form a cylinder.
It essentially deconstructed and morphed the surrounding buildings and sky and produced a disorienting, but engaging experience of the plaza Vendôme. Lapierre explained, “‘The Ring’ is an installation that takes into consideration the urban space networking: the rhythm, flow, organization and spatial hierarchy. The installation embodies a visual effect that is to connect all of these interactions through the implementation of an optical effect: the repetition of a cubic mirror to break the perception of the place.”
This dynamic installation changed the relationships between individuals and the space they occupied. “Ring” invited the visitor to play with the installation and space on two levels:
The very first approach was to experience a change in the urban areas: a spacial rediscovery. The facets of each cube reflected and reconstructed the place. The Ring worked at this stage as a visual intrusion: an acceleration that changed the perception of the place.
In a second step, the installation invited the visitor to get inside the ring, to see his/her own image multiplied to infinity, which collided with urban detail: it became a place outside time and outside spatiality. The vision was more intimate.
