Sten Eltermaa (EE, b. 1986) is an Estonian artist and scrivener whose research interests include the binary of transparency and reflection, liminality, psychogeography, ideologies, architecture, urban planning and monumentality.
The Bubble series is part of an ongoing artistic research, Glass Struggle, which deals with glass as a material – paradoxically fragile yet extremely resilient. In an architectural context, a glass window can suggest both inclusion (if it is transparent) and exclusion (if it is reflecting). Consequently, the spaces within appear either open or closed. With two ontological statuses, glass is both an object and a virtuality. Glass is liminal, belonging neither here nor there.
The virtual aspect of the window – in the context of institutions of power, governance and finance – can be seen as a self-portrait in the environment surrounding the architectural object, as a spectacle in the space, or as a mixture of them: depending on whether the window is transparent or reflective; or both at the same time. The Bubble is based on photographs of the facade and windows of BNP Paribas located in Brussels.
