February 06, 2007
Outside-in, upside-down — and now in color!
From Lensculture:
Abelardo Morell travels the world and converts full-size rooms (some spare, some ornately rococo) into immense camera obscura devices. He brings the outside in through a tiny pin-hole, and by the alchemy of optics, the outside is projected quite naturally upside down superimposing and hugging the surfaces of everything in the room. Then, he photographs the resulting “installation” with his 8 x 10 view camera and enlarges the prints to mural size.
The effect is dizzying and delightful. And the photographs get better and better as you study them and soak in the exquisite overlapping details.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 04:31 AM | Permalink
Comments
There are a number of contemporary artists using such outmoded photographic practices (analog film being one of these at this point) and superimposing different media in a very deliberate way. I prefer these works to the Doug Aitken "Sleepwalkers" project currently at MoMA, which similarly collapses architectural space via the projected image (in this case a series of sequenced yet different digital videos). Whereas Aitken's employment of Hollywood stars seems an uncritical reference to MoMA's clout as an museum-- an insufferable instance of institutional solipsism-- particularly the color photographs here are nicely understated in their contrast of "real" museum architecture, represented architectures in paintings such as the de Chirico, and the projected space of an outside that literally fills the inside. Smart.
Posted by: Dan Quiles | Feb 6, 2007 8:50:36 AM
Here are instructions on how to make your own room-sized camera obscura.
Posted by: Karen Hoffmann | Feb 8, 2007 2:41:26 PM
Post a comment