Imagine you’re looking at an apple. It sits on the table, looking very fresh and delicious. Naturally, you try to reach for it, but your hand just ends up grabbing air. You’ve just been tricked by a phenomenon in physics known as holography.
You might recall seeing them only in sci-fi movies, but holograms are very much real. The concept of holography has been expanding ever since 1948, when scientists were tackling the problem of improving image resolution in electron microscopes. The essential principle of holography deals with wave interference, the process of the combination of waves. A holographic recording held on a photographic plate contains information on the intensity and phase (coherency) of the wave. The latter determines the “height” of the sample, which is how the image gets its 3D qualities.
This whole process depends on the capturing of the specific instance of the light and its specific information. With the reconstruction of the wave and the coupling of the original reference beam, the viewer sees what is depicted as a hologram (similar to the figure below).
Holography has since been adapted for a variety of purposes including microscopy, medicine, and virtual reality. Since the late 1900s, artists have also started to investigate the implementations of this technology for beautiful visual works. Museums and exhibitions such as Holocenter and the Guggenheim Museums and Foundation capture specific artists’ ability to manipulate and create using holograms. Unlike simple holograms such as the ones on your credit card, these holograms are more complex in both the physics and media required to create them.
One specific example of a holographic artist is Setsuko Ishii, whose works were featured on Optica, an esteemed publisher and community for optics. A Japanese painter & physicist, Ishii uses holograms as a way to create emotion with the principles of light. She works with multicolored holograms, which require multiple input light rays as well as multiple large-sized displays. Each piece of hers is unique and I especially love how interactive her pieces feel given its holographic medium.
Beyond professionalism, holographic art can be accessible to the average Joe through commercial technology. On Amazon, you can purchase holographic fans, which use LED lights that spin to form a 3D hologram that is both realistic and animated. The accessibility and advancement of holographic technology is truly remarkable, and we are living through this growth. After all, the commercialization of the aforementioned holographic fans have only been implemented within the last few years.
I find it exciting how holograms will affect our lives in the future as a visual medium. In megacities such as Tokyo and Shanghai, holographic billboards and signs have already been developed and displayed throughout busy streets. Many people say they are afraid of the dystopian future with the “digital revolution,” but I am anticipating the immersivity and grandeur of holograms, both for public display and artistic expression.
Works Cited
Humphries, Matthew. “Zalman’s New Fan Doubles as Holographic 3D Display.” PCMAG, 11 June 2018, www.pcmag.com/news/zalmans-new-fan-doubles-as-holographic-3d-display. Accessed 21 May 2024.
Matišák, Jakub, et al. “Use of Holographic Technology in Online Experimentation.” Proceedings of the 2019 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, 26 Sept. 2019, https://doi.org/10.15439/2019f179. Accessed 21 May 2024.
Optica. “Magician of Light | Optica.” Www.optica.org, 16 Nov. 2022, www.optica.org/about/optica_community/magician_of_light/. Accessed 21 May 2024.
