An eye in the eye

Material: Found sculpture, Black fabrics, A lens

As I entered the Watermill Center in September 2020, I found a a room size sealed diagonal yellow cube at the middle of the wood. It was a sculpture made by a former resident, as an alien kind of vehicle just landed on the field, and it was going to be de-installed pretty soon. I decided to practice making a camera obscura using the structure. I opened up the cube, made a doorway, and built up a flat room inside, and covered the inside by black fabric. After adding the right lens, it projected the live reflection of the wood inside.

Inside the room

Due to the total darkness of the room, during the daylight one could see all little movements of the trees, but the decrease of light passing through the small hole made the reflected live image as if it was the night time. I made a wooden box, to place the video projector and made a small round hole at it, in order to seal the extra lights as much as possible. So the box cropped the central circle of the projected video, I had made earlier. The round shape video projected on the bottom of the screen, played the moon role for the upside down live reflection of the woods.

Selected video frames

The video revealed the constant reflection of the sun on the sea waves, despite their movements, and the rapid motion of the ship I was shooting from. The video plays for 40 seconds, and loops after 20 seconds of black segment which still looked bright within the completely darkroom.