Chromascope
An instrument for testing the social effects of colour. A transparent gem, conducting the sun’s light into a ballet, ever-evolving through the daily cycle. It is a celebration of human diversity and the billions of possibilities. It is an inhabitable kaleidoscope creating red dawns and damson dusks.
Bird’s eye view time-lapse of cross-pollinating colour shadows of one daily cycle
During the day the Chromascope acts as an instrument to translate the suns light, filling the central Cromadome with billions of ever-evolving colours. A ballet begins between the residents of Black Rock City and the sun. The shadows evolve through the full spectrum providing coloured shade, inside and outside the pavilion, at different times of the day.
The tiered structure can vary in size, but the rainbow’s spectrum encircles 180 degrees. Red to the eastern sunrise and violet to the western sunset. The pavilion is a tool that allows the sun’s light to be separated through all colours of the rainbow in one day – repeating the ritual on a daily basis. The colours cross-pollinate in a structural lattice pattern with the purest colours on the external ring. Each concentric ring from the edge to the centre is a further degree of cross-pollination of the colours – creating more complex and varied colours towards the centre until one reaches the oculus of uninterrupted sunlight. A daily dance in the kaleidoscopic shadows of the pavilion.
Flat polycarbonate panels, ¼ inch thick, with colour film applied, are assembled as concentric rings of portal frames to create a multi-coloured reciprocal structure. An outer corridor spirals inward to the Chromadome which is filled with multi-coloured diversity at all times of the day, and night. A central oculus provides a clearing in the colour.
A tension wire cable system is woven through the polycarbonate structure to ensure structural viability in the event someone does decide to climb. It is manufactured as a kit of parts, off playa, and assembled on-site with minimal MOOP.
¼ inch polycarbonate is used for police riot shields in the UK. It retains stability until 270 degrees Fahrenheit and does not experience total failure until 320 degrees.
Interlocking slots and holes are CNC milled into the polycarbonate sheets to further stiffen the structure.
Two slot systems allow the portal frames to be configured into a circle or a rectangle for adaptability to new sites.
