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Envision The Fourth Dimension Inside This LED Hypercube

The 'Hypercube' is mixed media artist Kit Webster's imagining of a real world 4D object.

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Visualizing a tesseract is hard to do. Limited as we are to three-dimensional thought, fathoming the geometrical principle of a 4D hypercube just seems, well, unfathomable. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try: tackling the challenge seems to be a favorite pastime for artists at the intersections between math and technology— see, for example, designer Marc ten Bosch's explanation of his 'impossible' 4D puzzle game.

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In this vein, mixed-media artist Kit Webster's Hypercube installation, which debuted at the White Night Festival in Melbourne, Australia, also does a great job at visualizing the subject. Using programmable LEDs to flash along the sculpture's edges like interdimensional beings flitting back and forth from dimension to dimension, the Hypercube isn't just an explanation of a mind-melting geometric concept— like the 3D projection-mapped sculpture he created last year, this sculpture's attention to visual and structural detail makes this installation completely immersive on aesthetic and intellectual levels.

In the words of the artist, "The minimalistic shape is designed to elicit a sense of balance and multidimensionality while simultaneously playing host to an intricate audiovisual experimental and synesthetic choreography, further extending the dimensionality through its spatial and temporal dynamics, culminating in the creation of a dynamic non-linear sensory environment." Webster's creation meticulously synchronizes the strobing, swirling light show with a driving beat in a pattern that gloriously overwhelms the senses, even when watching from a tiny laptop screen. The sculpture takes on the kind of appearance we imagine a square-shaped portal into a parallel universe might look like. In the future, we hope interdimensional travel is half as awesome as gazing into the Hypercube.

Watch the engrossing sample footage of the Hypercube above, and ogle these choice moments its performance below:

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To lose yourself in more mind-melting installations and objects—from LED sculpture to projection mapping and beyond—visit Webster's portfolio website.

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