About the Art:

Inspired by the apartment courtyard from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, this installation recreates the perspective from Jimmy Stewart's window and turns the passive spectator into an active observer. It is not a straight-forward representation of Stewart’s viewpoint, but instead a video collage of shapes and textures, combined with scenes from classic cinema. The included films explore themes of voyeurism and the boundary between real life and fantasy. The layers of the video and sound become a cacophony of information that the observer is invited to decode while bound by the constraints of the viewing window. 

At the core of the piece is a physical modification of the display hardware. By stripping the front polarizing film from an LCD screen, the original video feed disappears and instead the viewer sees a blank screen of white light. The concealed imagery can only be revealed through a handheld polarized viewing window. As visitors move this window frame across the screen, fragments of the hidden scenes emerge while the surrounding display remains blank. 

This interaction turns viewers into active participants whose vision is intentionally restricted. The polarized window functions much like a keyhole, a camera lens, or a pair of binoculars. It mimics the limited field of view of the voyeur. The screen never reveals a total picture and the sounds all overlap, inviting viewers to create their own narratives from the scenes. As participants physically hold and move the polarized window over the screen, they become aware that they are actively engaged in voyeurism. 

Created in collaboration with Eugenii Donev, associate professor in APSU’s Department of Physics, Engineering, and Astronomy, whose expertise is in the field of nanophotonics and nanoplasmonics. The project connects cinematic history with the physical interaction of light with matter. Within the virtual window of the screen, what appears absent is, in fact, hidden in plain sight, emphasizing that observation is never complete but always constrained by the field of vision.