Artranspennine08

http://vistawiki.wikispaces.com/

Sundays: 29th June 11-4pm, 6th July 11-4pm and 13th July 11-4pm.

Vista is a Camera Obscura in the form of a mobile tent. Over 3 Sundays in June and July 2008, the tent will be pitched in 3 different rural locations across the Pennine Way. The selected locations are all well marked viewpoints, with good views over the surrounding urban landscape.


The Vista Camera Obscura has been created in a tent in order to be familiar with the landscape in which is to be installed. Traditionally camera obscura's were fun and magical ways of covertly viewing our urban environment, they were permanently located on high points in cities, with some still existing, such as the Clifton Observatory in Bristol. As we have become the most surveilled nation in the world within our cities, this project aims to reverse the roles, and make the watched the watcher, but also reverse the negativity associated with watching, and re-introduce an element of magic.

The lack of technology required for a camera obscura to create stunning imagery is minimal. The projection produced by a camera obscura is entirely natural, and is based on an optical law of nature. Camera obscura's work in the same way as pinhole camera's, they utilise pinhole apertures (small holes) to let light in, which is then reflected onto a white surface. The image appears upside down, as the light waves cross over through the small pinhole aperture, reversing the image.

The project is open to all members of the public and welcomes anyone who wants to experience the project first hand. Visitors will be able to enter the tent, and sit or lie down in the darkened space and observe the view projected onto the inside of the tent through the pinhole.

The images and comments posted to this Wiki aim to open out the project to those who may not be able to get to the locations, or are just interested.

Please post your images and comments of the piece, perhaps some information about where you were walking the day you came to see the project, and/or how you came across it. Please don't post general images to the Wiki, just ones you have taken of the artwork itself.

The 3 locations are mapped on the Wiki with Google Maps, and the GPS coordinates provided.

Enjoy.