Pedro Paiva and João Maria Gusmão

At their best, Gusmão + Paiva return us to that sense of wonder that spectators of early film must have felt as they watched the world unfold before them in the dark. Seeing a shadow play of bicycle wheels turning on the wall, I realise it isn’t a film, but a projection from a camera obscura. Squinting through several bright lenses set into a false wall, I could see the wheels and moving lights in the hidden space beyond. I’m reminded of Duchamp, who liked to keep his arrangement of a bicycle wheel and a stool in his studio for the pleasure of watching the wheel idly turn.

Marja Pirila with Petri Nuutinen

SPIRAL CAMERA OBSCURA 2006

Since 1996 we have made many different kind of camera obscuras in Finland and abroad for museums
and galleries as part of exhibitions but also for different kind of public spaces, schools, old peoples homes etc.

These works combine camera obscura phenomenon either to constructions with different shapes, matherials and sizes or to everyday objects. The common thing for them all is that the outside world is reflected upside down through the lenses on mat glass, acryl or tracing paper. This camera obscura phenomenon is like a cubistic video which changes all the time according to the light changes and movements in the world in front of and around of them.

From: http://www.marjapirila.com/camera_obscura.html

Marja PirilÄ

INTERIOR/ EXTERIOR

The idea in embarking on the Interior/Exterior project was a nocturnal inspiration after seeing some bw-images of Abelardo Morel in a photo magazine. In the room converted into a camera obscura I could capture an image of a person and at the same time that person’s room and the view from the window – what an all-encompassing method by which to photograph a person’s living environment!