Kaleidoscope

Yuri Endo 2012

I created a kaleidoscope, in order to experiment with multiple mirror effect, as well as symmetrical oscillation patterns that could be created by it.

A kaleidoscope is a tube-shaped optical instrument with a rotating end piece, which contains loose, colored objects. It was initially invented by Scottish inventor, David Brewster, as a scientific tool for the study of polarized light and later copied as a toy. 

The tube is commonly constructed with three rectangular mirrors, therefore, I constructed a triangular tube with 3 slices of rectangle-shaped cardboard with mirror stickers on, and placed various colorful objects, such as rubber bands, circuit strings, prisms, gummy bears and glitter glues, on one side of the tube. On that note, the above images show the result of what I observed when I looked through to one end of the tube, where the objects were placed.  More precisely, I  saw the light entering the other end of the tube and the objects inside were presented as colorful, geometric patterns due to the reflections in the mirrors. Twisting the end piece made the objects tumbled and resulted in further presenting varieties of color and patterns.

In conclusion, this visual effect resulted in generating the idea of ひかりの標本 (Hikari no hyohon), which is Japanese for “luminous specimen”; sealing light source inside of a prism as if it were a specimen. On that note, my next step is to utilize my initial concept of replacing the physical light with digital media solution to  design a mock-up, which will be constructed with a prism attached to a LCD screen, and the animation is projected on the prisms’ surfaces from behind.

Reference: Recycled Kaleidoscope, Homemade Kaleidoscope Toy