Craftman´s model- Mesocosm

Mesocosm
1998
Expanded plastic plates, 36 Lenses (various sizes), Cooper-sticks, Diffusion filter A4 (printed)

The Mesocosm (lat. Middle) is the world of the human being and its natural and artificial surrounding. Objects of the Mesocosm are the house I live in, the bike that I ride, a drawing pen or the cup of coffee that I have in the morning. These objects are relevant in my daily life and exist in a size I am used to perceive with my senses.
In a way I found it fitting to use the optical mechanism of the camera obscura (Latin dark chamber) in this work. It is one of the inventions leading to photography The principle can be demonstrated with a box with a hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface where it is reproduced, in color, and upside-down. The image's perspective is accurate. Closing the view to the natural world- and channeling it back by means of this optical devise into the exhibition space- was enough alienating to make one self-rethink its own process of perception.
For the installation Mesocosm I used the whole window front of the exhibition-space.
The six windows consisting of six elements each were covered. For the covering
I used white expanded plastic plates that were just transparent enough to weaken the natural light. In the middle of each plate I placed lenses of various sizes. Like in some practical
camera obscura I used a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus. The outside world was projected upside down onto diffusion-filters that were placed in front of the various lenses.
The filters are printed with chosen passages out of the Timaeus. The text images have been printed in a way that they were fading towards the midpoint of the filter on which the Image was focused on.
The Text elements were not readable connected only in the sense of origin and theme.