2021
2024

An Intimate Dance

Xinyi Xu

Xinyi Xu

Pratt Institute

Rahil Mandalia

Rahil Mandalia

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

2021
2024

An Intimate Dance

Xinyi Xu

Pratt Institute

Rahil Mandalia

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

2021
2024

An Intimate Dance

Xinyi Xu

Pratt Institute

Rahil Mandalia

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

The word “Intimacy” evokes a sense of warmth, that of comfort and proximity. Proximity in turn refers to closeness, where everything is near your eyes. Our concept revolves around the fact that human proximity limits your vision of the whole. That we see fragments of each other that allow us to create a collage, composite, mosaic, of our identities. This restraint of proximity ironically magnifies our understandings of the whole. This idea realizes into a lighting experience where a red-yellow ombre of light fragments itself on the primary viewers face, like chromatographs of pigments in a chemistry lab. The ombre, achieved by creating a cone of reflective red sheets on a bulb, casts a warm red vignette on the screen. As light passes through the screen, it disintegrates itself onto the primary viewers face. The fragmented viewer in-turn observes their secondary partner through the cuttings on the screen. Tiny reflective surfaces stuck on some of these cuttings allow more light to reflect onto the secondary viewer. They are now in clear view, a whole, yet the blinding light of the bulb prevents the primary from seeing them fully. A dance of hide and seek unfurls, creating an atmosphere of intimacy.

An Intimate Dance