Justin Urbach, hidden realms, 2025

2025

Medium

Pixel laser engraved monitor, HD, 9:16, minutes: 6.50, loop, color

Dimensions

100 × 60 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-155970

Justin Urbach’s work „hidden realms“ (2024) is both a video work and an object. The monitor here is not merely a support but itself a material component of the work. Through laser engraving—referred to by Urbach as “pixel engraving”—the display itself is worked on and made visible in its physical structure. In the foreground appear drawings and assemblies of retina chips, engineered not only to restore vision to blind people but also to implant infrared radiation capability into ocular functions of the human eye.. These visual systems serve to adjust lenses and standardize image sharpness, both in optics and in medical imaging. Inscribed into the pixel matrix of the monitor, they overlap with the existing grid of the display and the video. A merging of two systems arises, operating on different levels but serving the same function: the organization and precision of visibility. The video in the background shows a 3D-modeled, temporally extended process of a laser engraving. „hidden realms“ explores the relationship between the technical lens and human vision. Calibration appears as a fundamental process through which systems—and, in a broader perspective, perception itself—are structured. Urbach connects these levels in an overlay of materiality, data structure, and visual order.