Purple Void
Tony Oursler, 2005
Aluminium and acrylic LCD screen with video projection
106.7 × 111.8 × 2.5 cm
Chan Restaurant, The Met Hotel Art Collection, Thessaloniki
Description:
Floating like a living splash on the wall, Purple Void by Tony Oursler is a fluid-shaped sculpture with a central embedded LCD screen. In this hypnotic loop, a single human eye blinks, shifts, and stares—isolated, yet strangely expressive. The glossy, amoeba-like surface in vivid purple creates an atmosphere somewhere between playful and uncanny.
Oursler is known for embedding video into sculptural forms that seem to breathe and think. In Purple Void, he reduces the face to just the eye—distilling identity, surveillance, intimacy, and discomfort into a single focal point. The surrounding form evokes both abstraction and cartoonish softness, intensifying the contrast between body and machine, presence and detachment.
As with much of Oursler’s work, this piece prompts us to question how we experience emotion through screens, and how much we project onto the minimal cues of digital faces and voices. Purple Void is both quiet and intense—a meditative portal into the psychology of observation.
Interpretive Highlights
Singular focus: The eye becomes a symbol of both awareness and vulnerability—watching and being watched.
Digital intimacy: The screen doesn’t speak, but its gaze penetrates, echoing themes of surveillance, voyeurism, and loneliness.
Playful abstraction: The amorphous purple frame softens the technological coldness, inviting emotional engagement while keeping viewers on edge.