Christian Wagstaff & Keith Courtney (Australian)

1000 Doors installation - 2019

Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo AUS

Photos by Jane Mancini [more on Instagram]

Maze of Mirrors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QiFs2_z9Ek

So I’ve been having this nightmare, that I believe my mind is basing off 1000 Doors, an art insulation I saw back in 2018 here in Melbourne by Christian Wagstaff & Keith Courtney, where they made a series of rooms with different vibes, working to provoke a range of different feelings, what I remember about it most is the sound of a phone ringing in another room, and upon finding the room with the phone it would be ringing somewhere else and the strange overwhelming feeling of ‘not right’ that caused to alarm in my head and make me giggly and unnevered in response, even tho all it was a set of different rooms and a phone ringing. My nightmare decided to swap the door for differnet mirrors, from all walks of life and time periods displaying to me different captured scenes in time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xUlZIss94U

And it made me think who invented mirror mazes?  

Mirror Mazes messes with that uncanny feeling, put forth most famously by Sigmund Freud (Ya’ll know him the inventor of psychoanalysis ect) Freud argues that we experience a sense of uncanny when a certain trigger brings back repressed childhood conflicts or primitive beliefs that we have overcome but suddenly, seemingly, receive renewed affirmation, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real.

Mirrors have (to me at least) a vibe about them I'm all about but also scared of the most forbidden kind of mirrors are mirror mazes people. Mirror mazes are one of those strange liminal places, ever since I was little and my love for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland became my favorite fairy tale mirrors have had a strange magical feeling to me, the way she climbs up upon her mantel and melts through the gleaming silvery mist of the mirror to a land of high nonsense, do you think if we got to witness her version of the story in the land on the other side if there was an equally as baffled version crossed in her place on the other? Because even the ‘living’ things over there still had that reflection in the glass.  

Leonardo Da Vinvci In his sketch book he drew plans for a mirror chamber with an octagonal chamber, each with a mirror. This allows an observer to view completely any object placed inside the chamber. One mirror is a hinged door into the chamber with a small viewing hole drilled through it – after that in France 1689 Louis XIV created the famous ‘Galerie des Glaces’ at the palace of Versailles, France, as a young man Peter Stuyvesant visited, he became inspired to build in what is now New York “The House Of Mirrors” charging entrance fees to the public to use it, which got adopted but the carnivals and amusement parks.

Gustav Castan, owner of the Panopticum attaraction in Berlin, is credited with making the first formal attempt at creating a mirror maze, patented in 1888, he came up with the idea to have set specifications that mirrors should be placed at a precise 60-degree angles (or multiples thereof) around one or more sides of equilateral triangles that form various rhombic and hexagonal arrangements, to produce different reflective effects. In his own words, “The primary object of my invention is to provide such an arrangement of mirrors in a room or enclosure as shall cause them, by their reflection of objects suitably located with relation to the mirrors, to present to the vision of a person in the apartment the illusion of a labyrinthian device composed of seemingly endless passages, which appear to him to be freely traversable until he is stopped in his course by an obstructing mirror, from which long passages seem to extend to the right and to the left.”

(TrendHunter.com) The 2019 Luminato Festival brings a traveling installation to the Harbor Front in Toronto. Designed by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, the House of Mirrors is described as “a reality-... from TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends http://bit.ly/2Xu1FjS

Illusory Mirror Mazes - The Luminato Festival Brings the House of Mirrors Installation to Toronto (TrendHunter.com)

(TrendHunter.com) The 2019 Luminato Festival brings a traveling installation to the Harbor Front in Toronto. Designed by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, the House of Mirrors is described as “a reality-... source http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/luminato-festival1

Illusory Mirror Mazes - The Luminato Festival Brings the House of Mirrors Installation to Toronto (TrendHunter.com)

(TrendHunter.com) The 2019 Luminato Festival brings a traveling installation to the Harbor Front in Toronto. Designed by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, the House of Mirrors is described as “a reality-... source http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/luminato-festival1

The Auckland's Art festival, which runs throughout the month of March, showcases various art works and performances from artists all over the world. These art pieces can vary tremendously in what they are and what they represent. An interesting and interactive piece of work at 2018s Auckland Arts Festival, was a piece made by Australian artists Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney. The work is  a 40 tonne steel and 15 tonne glass structure that is 400 square meters and stands in silo parks festival grounds. This wonderful attraction resembles an amusement parks hall of mirrors maze, and has attracted crowds of people as it travelled across Australian and now sits in Auckland city's Silo Park, doing exactly the same thing.

 House of Mirrors is a fun outdoor activity for all ages, a children and pet friendly area, the maze is a great time to take your family or a group of friends. You wonder up and down the maze, unsure where you started and where you needed to go, but thanks to help from the center portrait of an old lady you can always have a marker. The staff on hand are a laugh as well, pretending to clean glass that doesn't exist and watching in amusement as people walk around in circles trying to find the exit.

 As you lose enter the maze you notice that the exit is very close to the entry point, and while you may you think it will be a piece of cake, think again. The maze is intricately and stunningly designed that you end up walking around in circles and more circles. Running into the same people over and over again you’ll have a laugh with them and try to work out where you have and where you have not been. Convinced you’ve been everywhere and wondering if you’ll ever actually find the exit is just part of the fun of The House of Mirrors. Though it can get frustrating it is an attraction everyone should visit while in the City, you may think time slows down in there as you wander around but surprisingly you do not spend as long as you think. The Hours of Mirrors is one of the more fun and interactive attractions of the Auckland Art Festival this year if not one of the more talked about shows.

 The House of Mirrors is an attraction of the Auckland's Art Festival which everyone must see, costing 12.50 per person, the one of a kind attraction is a fun, if not slightly frustrating, time.

The disorienting House of Mirrors installation is coming to Bendigo Art Gallery - Time Out Melbourne (blog)

Time Out Melbourne (blog) The disorienting House of Mirrors installation is coming to Bendigo Art Gallery Time Out Melbourne (blog) Made from 40 tonnes of steel and 15 tonnes of mirrored glass, the installation – created by Melbourne artists Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney – is designed in such a way that visitors can often see others in the maze, but not themselves, and the ...

How do you find your way out of this thing? The 'House of Mirrors' installation by Christian Wagstaff & Keith Courtney, part of the Sydney Festival & located beside the Meriton Festival Village, is a fascinating labyrinth of endless giant mirrors. As you work your way around thousands of disorientating optical illusions & lose yourself in some bewildering reflections, you will discover that even though there is only one way in, getting out is a lot more difficult. Patrons are told to set aside about 30 minutes to complete the maze & the installation is not recommended for people who experience anxiety when feeling lost. © ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ @instawagstaff #HouseOfMirrors #MirrorMaze #Mirrors #Maze @sydney_festival #SydFest #SydneyFestival #ImLost #BlindLeadingTheBlind #HydePark #HydeParkSydney #Art #ArtInstallation @igerssydney #igerssydney @paulabroom @dawa_lhamo @roisin.mcgee @instagram #WHPfollowthelight @huffpostau #huffpostau @sydneyfolk #sydneyfolk @OzShot #OzShotMag @sydneyeventblogger @broadsheet_syd @timeoutsydney @stackmagazine @jesskeirle #gamer #gaming #girlswhogame #girlgamer #gamergirls #gamergirl #videogames #videogame #gamersunite #gamestagram #instagamer #videogameaddict #instagame (at Sydney Festival)