Creation date: 2020
Sound design: Olivier Ratsi
Production: Crossed Lab & la Gaîté Lyrique – ©Olivier Ratsi
NEGATIVE SPACE
by Olivier Ratsi (FR)
With Negative Space, Olivier Ratsi invites us to navigate both physical space and our own thoughts. The work consists of a dark, enclosed, fog-filled chamber, intermittently illuminated by glowing white tubes that simulate an infinite architecture.
Enhanced by a custom sound design, the installation encourages visitors to feel their way through an ambiguous, vaporous space, creating the sensation of passing through luminous doorways.
The piece relies on the phenomenon of retinal persistence, simulating movement and shifts between transparency and opacity, leading to a disorienting loss of spatial reference points. By playing with the negative/positive principle, the artwork generates immaterial and ephemeral spaces, challenging us to reconsider how we perceive and mentally reconstruct the environment around us.
Olivier Ratsi is a visual artist who uses light as his primary medium. His work explores objective reality, time, space, and matter, viewed as intangible concepts of information. Drawing on the experience of reality, he creates immersive works that question how the viewer interprets the real.
For two decades, Olivier Ratsi’s works have been presented worldwide. In 2021, he held a solo exhibition at la Gaîté Lyrique in Paris. His name is listed among the “50 artists of the 21st century who have shaped the French art scene”, according to the December 2020 issue of L’OEil magazine.
