Circle Round Itself

Based in Newburgh, New York, Diana Mangaser has a Masters of Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design and a Sheridan Teaching Certificate from Brown University. Her work, Circle Round' Itself, draws on the inherent distances between the design and construction of architectural structures. This constructed circle becomes Mangaser's representation of the proclamations of what is, and is not, architecture. A circle that from afar appears an impenetrable and inert wall yet upon close inspection teems with the life of ambiguity and creativity.

The Collapse And Expansion Of Space

Slowing the aspect of time to negotiate the created representation of space, Mangaser captured the transformations of negativity to positivity, from black to white. Each image creates an apparition, an image association for each individual viewer. The image of cellular life, a geometric pattern, the whole of the cosmos. The infinitude of interpretations extended from the relationship of design and construction to the experiences of the viewer. Distance was the method but the scope was two-fold, exposing space at both the macro and microscopic. So, Circle Round' Itself was simultaneously a fragment of the world, in all its detailed minutia, and an entirely new world.

Parallel Worlds

Questions emerge from Mangaser's video concerning the nature of space. Mangaser's work so requires an investment from the viewer in the creation of its larger expression. The parallel worlds of the macroscopic and microscope collapse into a single image, removing the line between them. So, the line between design and construction is removed. Each architectural structure is to be experienced separately and regarded independently. Each object creates its own space and has its own relationship between its design and construction. So the circle becomes an infinitely-sided polygon, cataloging the complete possibilities of architecture and the inter-relationship between these points.