Macroworld: One Hours3 and Canned

Though usually invisible to the naked eye, they are the building blocks for every digital image. These pixels are the smallest coloured dots on a screen and combine to create shapes and colours. In her so-called Pixel Boxes, Angela Bulloch drastically enlarges these coloured dots and makes the invisible visible. This is precisely what her work is about: revealing the systems that give structure to the world and our perceptions.

Bulloch worked with computer artist Holger Friese to develop the 35 Pixel Boxes that make up this piece. Each box is a 50×50×50 cm cube and features a transparent screen on one side. That screen lights up in an alternating display of solid colours, with every box containing three fluorescent tubes in red, green and blue. Controlled by a computer program based on film data and other sources, they work together to create over 16 million different colour values. As a result, each box can be seen as an enlarged, three-dimensional pixel, while the whole group displays a film reduced to a pulsating rhythm of abstract colours.

Bulloch views the boxes as an imaginary space where ideas over art, subjective experience and perception come together. The colours and forms elicit associations with a wide range of art movements, from cubism and futurism to conceptual art. The orderly way in which the colours alternate and the clean lines of the cubes refer to minimalism, an approach to art that reduces all elements to simple, clearly defined forms.