Antony Gormley, Breathing Room III

In the lower ground-floor gallery, Gormley exhibited a new installation of Breathing Room III the third and largest in this series of works which contain and implicate the viewer as the figure in a shifting ground.

As a physical manifestation of the gallery, Breathing Room III, is made from 15 interconnecting photo-luminescent ‘space frames’, the total volume of which is equal to that of the internal gallery space.

Time and light are the principal materials of the work. Breathing Room III encourages the viewer to enter into and interact with a defined sculptural space, where intense bursts of light interrupt complete darkness, unexpectedly jolting the experience from one of quiet meditation to acute interrogation.

- whitecube.com

I place this somewhere between a building's actual blueprints and Miroslaw Balka's box. On the one hand it is an experience that is "...both personal and collective, creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences... contrasting light and shade, individual experience and awareness of others, perhaps provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue" (Tate) - while bringing to light real information about the building, visualised in an unusual and thought provoking way.

The fact that it is indeed a work about the measurements within the building, however, becomes unimportant. 

For me Breathing Room iii is about creating an environment which would never otherwise be experienced. It is otherworldly, as though upon entering the room you step into a computer game or a digital world, and in this way I admire Gormley's ability to build something that is so completely beautiful and perfect. it's flawlessness is what becomes the transporting factor, as you search for clues that tell you that you are still standing in the real world, none come to you. 

That the lights turn on and 'jolt' the viewer is not a point of interest for me, I see that factor as merely a necessity in keeping the paint glowing - would Gormley have chosen to do it had he access to paint which glowed indefinitely?

Aesthetically this work is so completely what I would like my own to be reminiscent of, however I fear duct tape, white coving and LEDs from ebay might not cut it in the same way.