This is a cool installation art for American Express office lobby. It’s made by artist Kumi Yamashita who experts in creating artworks by using real light and shadow. First he collect photos and profiles of employees as the sources, then work with light shadow and papers to reveal actual faces. During the execution, a kind of mathematical and visual calculation is very important to hit with just the perfect light source.
Gosh! This is a very difficult project as each faces is all different! I really like this work as this work is all about the detail in each paper which is important in art making actually. The devil is in the detail they say, well said.
Interesting work, very subtle and nicely unassuming! It made me think of this: “Almost a century earlier, Dayton Miller had proposed to make an audio waveform from the portrait of a woman’s profile, so that “beauty of form may be likened to beauty of tone color, that is, to the beauty of a certain harmonious blending of sounds” ([2] p. 120).” I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dayton’s pioneering work, here’s his book (in public domain): 2.Dayton Clarence Miller, The Science of Musical Sounds, (New York The Macmillan Company, 1916), http://www.questia.com/read/3758500
I think it’s an interesting work, requires some time to shape the faces. The idea is simple and cool. However, in my opinion, it is rather simple to copy the idea. I have seen people use different materials to make the shadow of faces. When planning something, there is a question has to be considered, “is it easy to make so that everybody is able to mass produce and make it less valuable?”
The idea is simple to copy, but (as Kamarul pointed out) to do it well – to make the shadow-profile really look like one specific individual, a real technical mastery is involved.
So the value-add lies in the execution, and not in the idea itself. Isn’t this very Japanese!!??!