Sam Lubell
Nestled atop a rocky bluff on the Greek isle of Aegina, overlooking the Aegenean Sea, the Peleponese, and several rugged islands, the Camera Obscura Building has one of the most dramatic locations of any artwork in history. The light that floods this extraordinary site helps make the cylindrical structure, finished last year, appear in the warming sun as if it´s made of gold. It´s not. In fact, the edifice is made of plywood on an iron frame. Twenty-three feet in diameter, it has 12 tiny openings through which enters the otherwise dark interior and produces a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding scenery. The panorama is split into 12 individual images, upside down and reversed, on a semitransparent screen. It takes about 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The process, developed more than 2.000 years ago, gives the building its name and provides an eery, but wondrously surreal expereance in a place known more for beachgoers, fishermen, and an ancient Greek temple than for contemporary art. The building was constructed over an old German cannon placement now controled by the Greek Navy. It was designed by Austrian Archtect Franz Berzl with filmmaker Gustav Deutsch, and was one of a group of art projects, called the »Aegina Academy«, brought to the island in 2003.
The Camera Obscura´s purpose, Deutsch points out, is to explore the perception and interpretation of our world. "If you are able to decide if what you see is real or fiction, then you are in possession of your reality," says Deutsch. "With today´s media and technology, this is often not the case." The »Aegina Academy« project will pick up again in 2005, with an light installation inspired by the nearby Temple of Apollo.