Walk in Camera Obscura
Iris Rampula-Farrag
A permanent spatial installation for the “Room of Silence” at the palliative unit. Since 2012, balloon has been experimenting with camera obscura modules in contemporary architecture. The camera obscura, a prototype of the photographic camera, works much like the human eye, projecting real-time, upside-down images of surroundings onto a screen in a darkened room without electronic installations. Lenses and mirrors can focus and redirect these projections onto interior surfaces.
In 2012/13, balloon installed a camera obscura in a caravan for the Outinverse research project, revealing its calming, meditative effects on viewers. This led to the idea of using the camera obscura in medical and therapeutic settings.
The first walk-in camera obscura for such purposes was built as a permanent installation in a day room of the palliative unit in the course of converting and building an extension to Fürstenfeld regional hospital (LKH) in 2017. It is a context-sensitive perceptual installation that opens up a wider spectrum of viewing the surrounding site for patients and visitors, but also sets their worlds of thought in motion. Specifically, the four-meter-wide and nine-meter-high darkened “Room of Silence” allows users to take in a projection of the new gardens on the wall and the moving cloudy sky on the ceiling. The visual installations amplify the effect of the room designed in collaboration with ARGE Morawetz-Zinganel and supplement the other facilities available in the “Room of Silence”: a relaxing lounger and massage chair, a long bench, sleeping pads and a gong. By opening and closing the blinds and the curtain and by modifying the lighting, it is possible to create different light moods and scenarios for use in the room.
The focus is not on an architecture for events, for staging, but rather an architecture of the senses.
Client: Steiermärkische Krankenanstaltengesellschaft KAGES // KIG Krankenanstalten Immobilien GmbH
Categories: Health and Welfare
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Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura
Iris Rampula-Farrag AT
http://www.balloon-rgw.at
Lendkai 43 | 8020 Graz