Camera Obscura (Latin for 'dark chamber')
Dolci cose a vedere, e dolci inganni
[ Things sweet to see, and sweet deceptions ]. [1]
[2]
Through a coin-sized opening in a darkened window an ordinary bedroom in New York becomes a living canvas. In the far corner stands a modest wooden dresser; sitting on top, a bulbous ceramic lamp wears a wide lampshade tilted ever-so-slightly; beside the lamp there’s a picture frame that holds a family’s portrait, silhouettes smiling in the dimness. The dresser, the lamp, and the picture frame are reflected in a tall mirror mounted on the back of a closet door. The room appears small but tidy. The walls are bare. In the foreground a low bed is covered by a plain white spread, trimmed in white.
It is an otherwise ordinary bedroom except for the projected image of an upside-down Manhattan skyline dripping like stalactites from the ceiling.
On the historical significance of the camera obscura, cultural theorist Jonathan Crary writes:
“For over two hundred years [the camera obscura] subsisted as a philosophical metaphor, a model in the science of physical optics, and was also a technical apparatus used in a large range of cultural activities. For two centuries it stood as model, in both rationalist and empiricist thought, of how observation leads to truthful inferences about the world at the same time the physical incarnation of that model was a widely used means of observing the visible world, an instrument of popular entertainment, of scientific inquiry, and of artistic practice. …[But] in the texts of Marx, Bergson, Freud, and others the very apparatus that a century earlier was the site of truth becomes a model for procedures and forces that conceal, invent, and mystify truth.” [3]
The catalytizing—indeed mystifying—element of this photograph by Abelardo Morell (one of his series of camera obscura images produced since the early 90s) is certainly the Empire State Building, laying prostrate (post-swoon?) and faintly shimmering across the clean undulating bedspread.
Whether a premeditated reference or simply a happy coincidence, it recalls a certain painting by Madelon Vriesendorp called “Apres L’Amour,” which was used on the original bookcover of Koolhaas’ Delirious New York (1978). Parallels quickly emerge: the iconic building in question—somewhat melted; spare furnishings; a foreshortened composition; even the strange beam of light coming from out of the left side of the room which suggests a possible camera aperture.
But you be the judge.
[4]
“What is crucial about the camera obscura is its relation of the observer to the undemarcated, undifferentiated expanse of the world outside, and how its apparatus makes an orderly cut or delimitation of that field allowing it to be viewed, without sacrificing the vitality of its being.” (Crary)
[1] Francesco Algarotti, ‘Of the Camera Obscura’ from An Essay on Painting, in Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger. Art in Theory, 1648-1815 : An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000. 477.
[2] Abelardo Morell, “Camera Obscura Image of the Empire State Building in Bedroom, 1994” in A Camera in a Room : Photographs. Photographers at Work. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
[3] Jonathan Crary, “The Camera Obscura and its Subject”. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. New York: MIT Press, 1991.
[4] Madelon Vriesendorp, “Apres L’Amour” in Delirious New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Dolci cose a vedere, e dolci inganni
[ Things sweet to see, and sweet deceptions ]. [1]
[2]Through a coin-sized opening in a darkened window an ordinary bedroom in New York becomes a living canvas. In the far corner stands a modest wooden dresser; sitting on top, a bulbous ceramic lamp wears a wide lampshade tilted ever-so-slightly; beside the lamp there’s a picture frame that holds a family’s portrait, silhouettes smiling in the dimness. The dresser, the lamp, and the picture frame are reflected in a tall mirror mounted on the back of a closet door. The room appears small but tidy. The walls are bare. In the foreground a low bed is covered by a plain white spread, trimmed in white.
It is an otherwise ordinary bedroom except for the projected image of an upside-down Manhattan skyline dripping like stalactites from the ceiling.
On the historical significance of the camera obscura, cultural theorist Jonathan Crary writes:
“For over two hundred years [the camera obscura] subsisted as a philosophical metaphor, a model in the science of physical optics, and was also a technical apparatus used in a large range of cultural activities. For two centuries it stood as model, in both rationalist and empiricist thought, of how observation leads to truthful inferences about the world at the same time the physical incarnation of that model was a widely used means of observing the visible world, an instrument of popular entertainment, of scientific inquiry, and of artistic practice. …[But] in the texts of Marx, Bergson, Freud, and others the very apparatus that a century earlier was the site of truth becomes a model for procedures and forces that conceal, invent, and mystify truth.” [3]
The catalytizing—indeed mystifying—element of this photograph by Abelardo Morell (one of his series of camera obscura images produced since the early 90s) is certainly the Empire State Building, laying prostrate (post-swoon?) and faintly shimmering across the clean undulating bedspread.
Whether a premeditated reference or simply a happy coincidence, it recalls a certain painting by Madelon Vriesendorp called “Apres L’Amour,” which was used on the original bookcover of Koolhaas’ Delirious New York (1978). Parallels quickly emerge: the iconic building in question—somewhat melted; spare furnishings; a foreshortened composition; even the strange beam of light coming from out of the left side of the room which suggests a possible camera aperture.
But you be the judge.
[4]“What is crucial about the camera obscura is its relation of the observer to the undemarcated, undifferentiated expanse of the world outside, and how its apparatus makes an orderly cut or delimitation of that field allowing it to be viewed, without sacrificing the vitality of its being.” (Crary)
[1] Francesco Algarotti, ‘Of the Camera Obscura’ from An Essay on Painting, in Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger. Art in Theory, 1648-1815 : An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000. 477.
[2] Abelardo Morell, “Camera Obscura Image of the Empire State Building in Bedroom, 1994” in A Camera in a Room : Photographs. Photographers at Work. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
[3] Jonathan Crary, “The Camera Obscura and its Subject”. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. New York: MIT Press, 1991.
[4] Madelon Vriesendorp, “Apres L’Amour” in Delirious New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
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