Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo’s Looking at Nothing is a 3-dimensional research project that seeks to quantify, distill and bring a renewed understanding to the complex spatial qualities of the urban environment using data gathered by a high density laser scanning device, known as LIDAR. Co-founders and principals of the Seattle-based hybrid art and architecture practice, Lead Pencil Studio, Han and Mihalyo are interested in exploring the ineffable aspects of urban public space and the influence of architecture on human psychology. In Looking at Nothing, they counter what they understand to be our prevailing tendencies to look through space as nothing and see surfaces, and our limited abilities to describe the parameters of the invisible with vague dualities such as solid/void, figure/ground, or positive/negative.

During their Van Alen Institute fellowship residency, Han and Mihalyo will use LIDAR to create an analytical catalogue of the aggregate spatial environment of New York City. Building upon their investigations in Rome, Han and Mihalyo plan to scan dozens of locations within New York City, concentrating on the public spaces in the right of way and the differing spatial typologies found at each site. First developed in California for the Petroleum industry, LIDAR (Laser Infrared Detection and Ranging) uses a laser to make millions of highly accurate point measurements that are tracked and ordered to form a perfect digital 3-dimensional model of the visible world. LIDAR is capable of capturing the minute detail and texture of a New York alley at a distance of 600 feet from the scan position, right down to the size of the bottle cap found under a dumpster.

Looking at Nothing codifies in spatial terms what physical qualities and components, in their multiplicity, constitute the surfaces that our senses interpret as the ‘city’. Capturing and assembling this data in the digital realm, Han and Mihalyo will create comparative distillations of constituent parts of the urban landscape – only signs, for example, or windows, or utility infrastructure, or buildings, or spaces between buildings. Looking at Nothing aims to expand our field of perception by precisely removing things from view. At the conclusion of their term, Han and Mihalyo will exhibit their research and observations through prints, drawings, and digital animation video, in anticipation of a large-scale site-specific installation.