Ethan Jackson's Camera Obscura

Ethan Jackson's presentation of his camera obscura in Kenilworth Square was an astounding sight. As you looked up at the wall with light holes carefully positioned on it a picture perfect image of the surrounding street and scenery was shown. The image was inverted just as it is when it is first seen by the human eye. I was not expecting to be able to see such vivid colors or detail in the image, I was more expecting a shadow than an actual large-scale picture. Most interesting about this sight was the movement outside. As people walked by or cars drove past they seemed to be like ghosts, dissapearing behind stationary objects that were a more permanent fix in the image. When Jackson presented a short video of a camera obscura he had installed in a former church i was amazed. The walls on the church completed a natural, ever changing mural. It is surprising that this is not a more common practice in modern art. Museums could incorporate this technique not only as an exhibit but as a way of design and accentuation of architecture; artworks could be displayed in correlation with the images presented by the camera obscura image.
The work presented in Monday's March 7th class by Minyong Jang acted as a precursor to this exhibit by Jackson. When watching Jang's video The Dark Room I wasn't impressed until i realized that the flowing, shimmering images of water were captured, in essence, in a second party view. His images were so clear and detailed I din't think that it could have been made from filming the inside of the camera obscura.