Over the years, I’ve been fascinated with the exquisite possibilities of using mirrors for the interior faces of polyhedra (particularly Platonic Solids and Archimedean solids, and among those, particularly ones with dodecahedral and icosahedral symmetries.
One of my earliest fun discoveries was the Kaleidoscapes work of colleague Sara Frucht. She showed me some amazing reflected interior spaces made simply by using 3 triangular mirrors with a shared vertex, carefully designed to replicate the interior angles of a variety of polyhedra.
There are a number of other examples I found over the years by other geometric artists and this latest exhibit at Melissa Morgan Fine Art in Palm Desert, Calif. featuring the geometric artwork of artist Anthony James is quite stunning. I would check it out if I lived closer to southern California! :-) It appears that he’s using uniform edge lighting (probably LED that wasn’t available not too many years ago) and 2-way mirrors to make particularly lovely 3D models that can be viewed from many angles. Here are additional photos and a short video of this exhibit.
I’ve seen other versions (including a dodecahedron at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California several decades ago) which used regular (100% reflective) mirrors for all but one face, with the one “viewing face” either open (affording putting one’s head inside the shape for an even more immersive experience) or with regular glass.
When the Olympics was held in Greece some years ago, I thought it would be a cool attraction (with homage to the home of both Plato and Archimedes for whom their respective polyhedra are credited) to have huge versions of the aforementioned polyhedra big enough to walk inside (perhaps with elevators bringing spectators in and out) and then an additional bonus would be making acoustic recordings inside each of these structures and having a multisensory experience enhanced by the unique acoustic resonances of each structure, much as Paul Horn did with his classic recordings of flute music in the Taj Mahal in India and the Great Pyramid in Egypt. I made a very short recording inside the latter structure in the fall of 1992.
Here’s a video about another seasoned artist (Frank Stella) who has incorporated – appropriately enough, given his last name! – stellated polyhedra in his work.
