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Evan Fiddes

OKT Optics

An interactive visual study: a run of rendered plates, and a glass lens the reader carries across the page to read them closer.

Role
Concept, Modelling, Rendering, Development
Disciplines
Visual experiment, Interface development
Kind
Personal project
Status
In progress
A screenshot of the gallery page: a wide dark plate carrying a burst of fine iridescent filaments, with a round glass magnifier lettered OKT OPTICS 2.5x held over the upper left and enlarging the strands beneath it. A caption under the plate reads plate XVII, Rush, 10 bit PQ, HDR.
The lens over plate XVII, at two and a half times.

The study

Design, code, and a different way of seeing.

A gallery of rendered plates, and a glass lens the reader carries across them. The lens is a real optical element rather than a zoomed copy of the page, so what it shows is bent, edged and coloured the way glass would bend, edge and colour it.

The plates came first. Everything the lens does is built on top of a page that already reads without it.

A screenshot of two plates side by side on pale grey: on the left a tangle of bright filaments crossed by a magenta ribbon, on the right a green tinted plate with the round magnifier resting over its centre. Each plate carries a small caption naming it and its colour depth.
Two plates in the run, with the lens on the second.

My contribution

The artwork and the thing that reads it.

I made the plates, set the page, and built the lens that moves over it.

The same lens passes over headings and captions, which is the part that decides whether the idea is an ornament or an instrument.

A screenshot of the gallery's opening page on pale paper: the words seed the universe set large in a serif face, a short introduction, a column listing works, depth, process and year, and the round magnifier held over the text, enlarging a line of it.
The lens reads type as readily as it reads artwork.

What I made

  • A run of rendered plates, each one its own seed
  • A page that presents them at their own depth and ratio
  • A lens that magnifies artwork and type alike
A red topped side table under a faceted black wire pendant, holding a camera, a laptop and a thick book, with a sheer curtain and a sculpted white wall panel behind.

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