LIGA 13: Diego Arraigada (Arg). Looking in, Looking Out
Photography: Luis Gallardo
A hagioscope is an oblique architectural opening through a wall or pier in the chancel of a church which enables the worshippers, or whom the altar was not visible, to see the host during mass. Also known as a squint in England, hagioscopes were sometimes referred to as “leper windows” where an opening was made in an external wall so that lepers and other undesirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the congregation. More specific than a window, which allows for the passage of light, air, and sound, a hagioscope performs the sole function of looking through and providing visual access where a condition of separation is in place.
Diego Arraigada’s installation titled Looking in, Looking out at LIGA follows the lineage of the architectural hagioscope. Primarily consisting of a hollow volume that connects the two existing windows across the interior corner of the gallery, the trapezoidal and faceted form is a resultant of the negotiation between the existing windows.
On the outside, the piece transforms the exterior corner by the removal of the glazing and the creation of a smooth and continuous surface from the exterior wall through the inside of the new window. Standing outside looking through this new window, the gaze is carried through the interior and out again. Like the surface effects of a Klein bottle or a Mobius strip, the act of looking in from the outside only to be looking outside again, produces a short circuit in the logic of the typical aperture in architecture. As a marked contrast to the exterior, the surfaces inside of the gallery appear to be rough and discontinuous. An inside-out version of Brutalist architecture, the construction is left exposed and unfinished like the back of a stage set; the behind-the-scene underpinnings of the abstract exterior effect are left uncelebrated.
Whereas a traditional hagioscope operates under the presumption of an already existing and delineated separation, whether it be for structural or social reasons, Looking in, Looking out creates the very separation that it simultaneously tries to subvert. By negating the previous function of the windows as connection between the interior and exterior, a hard boundary is created to separate the two realms. Only with the establishment of this separation could a new form of connection –from the outside to the inside and back to the outside be made. The installation reinvents the hagioscope by achieving both separation and connection with a singular and definitive move.
While much recent research in design has generated inquiries into the dissolution of boundaries, Diego Arraigada’s simple and poignant installation at LIGA serves as a gentle reminder that the most innovative investigations are often discovered within the most traditional of architectural devices.
