This is What Happens When You Build a Cube Out of One Way Mirrors

This is one of those art projects that I could probably stare at for hours, losing myself inside it. The design collective Numen for Use created a 3D box of one-way mirrors, which also expands and contracts when inflated. The results are nothing short of awe-inspiring!

I remember when I was a kid, there way a hallway at the mall with mirrors on both sides. The angle was a little bit off, and as I walked by, I could see myself repeating into infinity, forever.

Imagine if they made this box large enough to step inside! Either way, this is definitely something that makes me say, “Wait, wow!”

THIS CUBE IS MADE OUT OF ONE WAY MIRRORS. NO MATTER WHICH WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, YOU CAN ONLY SEE THE REFLECTION OF OTHER OTHER MIRRORS INSIDE.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Built and designed by Numen/For Use, N-Light Membrane is a giant cube with three out of the six surfaces made of flexible membrane (foil mirror) with an air tank and a compressor connected to it. The other three mirrors are semi transparent spy-glass. By inflating or deflating the air tank, the membrane turns convex or concave, deforming the reflections within.

To get a true sense of the installation, be sure to check out the videos and animated gifs below.

Numen/For Use is a Croatian-Austrian design collective working in the fields of scenography, industrial and spatial design and conceptual art. The group first formed in 1998 as a collaborative effort of industrial designers Sven Jonke, Christoph Katzler and Nikola Radeljković under the banner For Use. In 1999 they established Numen as a collective identity covering all projects actualised outside the sphere of industrial design.

Since 2008, the collective has turned its focus towards configuring objects and concepts without a predefined function, an activity resulting in the more hybrid and experimental works such as the Numen-Light series and Tape Installation.