The concept of creating a temporary room in London for visitors is prescient and provocative, because in a sense the hotel guest could be seen as the epitomising the future of urban life. Freed from the community ties that have historically been created by geographic rootedness, the hotel guest’s continued sense of identity and community is defined by extraterritorial social relationships that are largely enabled by contemporary communication networks.

Anamorph addresses this shifting boundary between the individual and the city. It performs as an interface; between the guest and the city, and between the real and virtual. More than a contemplative art piece, we imagine the room to be an instrument of expression for visiting guests and artists to share their experiences through visual and written means.

The form of the room us inspired by a 17th Century technique of distorted projection called Anamorphosis where a conical or cylindrical mirror is placed on the drawing to transform a flat distorted image into a three dimensional picture that appears undeformed when looking into the mirror. The room thus appears as part of an extended field of LED lights across the roof surface that emit a distorted image, text, or animation created by room guests and visiting artists. This field of light is in turn reflected by the mirror skin to the wider city below as a coherent image, allowing it to be viewed from many angles. The project avoids the distinction between object and site by creating a rooftop field condition in which the room participates.