Solar Cinema

Photgraphic material.
Solar Cinema was a year-long research project commissioned by Art Works in Wimbledon and funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. The centrepiece of the project was a marquee transformed into a portable camera obscura. This was moved around Cannizaro Park over 5 weekends throughout the year, spanning the four seasons. The project looks back to the origins of photography to ask how the art form moves forward in the era of easy, disposable photographic images. The camera obscura, an ancient device anticipating photography and cinema was used to throw new light on the familiar landscape of Cannizaro Park. Solar Cinema examines the process of photography rather than its paper-supported product. The project asks questions about photography and cinema, inspired in part by Vilem Flusser who asks if traditional photography still has a point. This and related ideas were pursued by the camera obscura itself, a viewing apparatus without the function of reproducing scaled down records of a view. Instead by showing the projected image of the park in the interior of the tent the project presents and explores the process of looking and photography – diverting the sun’s light onto a surface. The installation was accompanied by two informal talks for visitors. As well as this a seminar on 07 March, 2007 explored the philosophical implications of the project and contextualised the practical research carried out between November 2006 and July 2007. Invited speakers discussed key questions raised by the project such as: The uses of Camera Obscura and their function in art, science and popular entertainment before photography and moving image; The materiality of the photography, and the relationship between process and product in still and moving photographic imagery; The historical context of photography and its relationship to contemporary image making technologies.