Polylith

Polylith investigates how digital technologies reconfigure the status of architectural surfaces as programmable interfaces through which processes of political and economic territorialization are ceaselessly and adaptively articulated.

Combining projection mapping, 3D-printed sculpture, and spatial audio, the work treats sculptural form as a dynamic substrate for temporal activation. Light and sound are used to animate complex geometries, producing an environment in which static form is continually redefined by its capacity to receive, transmit, and modulate information.

The installation approaches digital communication as a structural transformation of space itself. Surfaces are no longer inert boundaries but sites of contingent inscription, capable of hosting competing signals, directives, and representations. Perception is therefore no longer anchored in stable material reference points, but distributed across layered, transient activations.

The work situates digitally activated surfaces as politically and materially consequential. Their programmability enables rapid reconfiguration aligned with those who control the means of activation, while their immaterial outputs leave no physical trace. In this condition, surfaces occupy an unstable threshold between presence and absence, materiality and signal, operating as temporary architectures that reflect the volatility and asymmetries of contemporary technological systems.

Polylith is a collaborative project between James Grossman and Leonard Maassen.