Power Obscura – from the inside
Photo: Ana Escobar
The abandoned shipping container, laying empty and unused, could well serve as a fitting symbol to these economically challenging times. With global commerce ground to a halt these rectangular steel structures have proved to be an attractive creative challenge in recent years. With the arrival of three brightly coloured shipping containers on the doorstep of LCC, designed to entice interest in the LCC Summer Shows, came an opportunity instantly ceased upon by final year BA Photography students Maciej Markowicz and Andrew Moynehan.
As part of LCC’s continuing project The Elephant Vanishes what better way to document the people living and working in the surround area of Elephant & Castle than a giant walk-in pinhole camera?
By drilling a hole in the side of the green container, Maciej and Andrew are able to project an inverted image of the outside world onto the inside of what is a unique exhibition space. This in itself is nothing new as Maciej is quick to point out: “The optical phenomenon that we are using here has been known since as far back a five centuries before the birth of Christ. It uses basic optic principles and is called a Camera Obscura which was used a lot in Victorian times to help painters capture prospective.”
Andrew goes onto add: “It’s important that the idea behind the containers grabs the public’s attention so we have added a sound piece. Once inside the container people are encouraged to interact and stimulate people on the outside to perform via the microphone provided within. It many ways it’s a relational piece”.
The act of getting inside the container is an intimidating one but is rewarded with the ability to influence and direct others on the outside. As a result ‘Power Obscura’ successfully marries the idea of documentation with the overarching concept of ‘power’ serving as a theme for all of the LCC Summer Shows this year.
Power Obscura is taking place in the Green Container from 16 June – 23 June 2010.
Words by Adam Hayes
This is an exciting work! More than simply a ‘camera obscura’, Power Obscura creates an opportunity for the engagement between two realms of being, connected by light. This work gives us the power to inhabit the eye and to speak to the realm beyond the camera from within the archetypal entity of photography itself. It is more than the photographer simply inhabiting the camera, for inside not only do we witness the retinal lightbody potentialities of the other reality – the light transform of the world of material existence rendered as the mind-eye sees it, projected on the ignorant receptive inner surface of the container – therefore we engage with an image without conception or perception – except the other, projected in the mind of the viewer. Magnificent!