Gallery: A Puzzling Projection Simulates What It’s Like to Live With Dementia

  • This image may contain Indoor Play Area
    Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Niall McLaughlin
    01

    Dementia2.jpg

    “Losing Myself,” is an installation in the Irish pavilion at this year’s Venice Architectural Bienalle.
  • Image may contain Lighting
    Lez Barker Art AV
    02

    Dementia4.jpg

    In it, videos project onto the floor of a pitch-dark room into a rectangle of light. The 16 films, each just 16 minutes long, all begin with hand-drawn architectural blueprints. But as the minutes unspool, the projections bloom into colorful, complex patterns.
  • Image may contain Building Architecture and Utility Pole
    Lez Barker Art AV
    03

    Dementia1.jpg

    It’s meant to be a visual metaphor for the way people with neurodegenerative diseases experience the built environment. As a disorder like Alzheimer’s disease progresses, familiar places can grow increasingly foreign and confusing.
  • Image may contain Text Newspaper Rug and Paper
    Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Niall McLaughlin
    04

    Dementia5.jpg

    The drawings come from 16 architects, who were invited to draft blueprints of the Alzheimer’s Respite Center on tracing paper atop a glass-topped desk, while they filmed the sketches from beneath.
  • Image may contain Flooring Wood Lighting Floor and Hardwood
    Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Niall McLaughlin
    05

    Dementia3.jpg

    Sixteen Panasonic projectors atop 16 brass quadpods allow the drawings to play out as animations, in 16-minute loops.
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