Non-Platonic Solids

2016, Series of Hand-drawn Holograms

This series depicts the five Platonic Solids, classical forms of symmetry known since antiquity, rendered as hand-drawn holograms.

Duke spent nearly a decade developing this technique of drawing holograms by hand, allowing him to create fully three-dimensional images which appear to hover in space above a rotating plate.  The holograms can be viewed from all sides and do not require any special glasses or VR headsets.

In Plato’s allegory of the cave men are confined so all they can see of the world are shadows cast upon a wall.  This allegory describes an instance of a three-dimensional reality (the world) being projected to create a two-dimensional illusion (the shadows). In this series of holograms, the dimensional relationship of Plato’s cave is inverted: the two-dimensional reality of the holographic plate projects a three-dimensional illusion, and Plato’s ideal forms of matter are presented as immaterial holograms.