Viewmaster (2007)

The viewmaster explores pre-cinema technology - using a well know optical illusion called the 'pepper effect', the viewmaster proposes an archaic cinema, one that uses live images in the form of reflections versus projected ones.

Since the invention of projection in the late 19th century, film has become practically synonymous with the cinema or movie theater. Modeled after the traditional theater dispositive, the place where films are shown is a divided space: on the one hand is the screen, acting as a window onto an imaginary depth, and on the other, the auditorium, acting as a single, shared point of view, occupied by an audience that sit immobile in the dark.

The viewmaster reconfigures this traditional set-up, proposing a cinema where auditorium and screen are reversible, where multiple view points are possible and where the visitor can be both viewer and participant within a live image making process.

Based on an optical trick made popular in the theater and predating the invention of projection technology, the viewmaster make use of light, reflection and the presence of the spectators to create an ever changing array of moving images.

Considered a tool for gallery spaces as well as the theaters, the viewmaster was co produced by in Netwerk / Center for Contemporary Art for an exhibition September 15th - October 20th, 2007 with performances the 5th and 20th of October.

next performances -

Dedonderdagen @ DeSingel, Antwerp February 14th
Kaaitheater Studios August 29th - September 7th
Vooruit Gent, Almost Cinema October 7th - 18th


Concept / performance Heike Langsdorf & Ula Sickle concept / architecture Laurent Liefooghe sound design Peter Connelly light design Hans Meijer production management for Rebecca September vzw Natalie Schrauwen With the support of: KC Netwerk Aalst, kunst-werk / f,r,o,g,s - OS, Nadine, wp Zimmer and the Flemish Minister for Youth, Culture, Sport and Brussels Affairs. A Rebecca September production.




Photo: Josephine Hirschi / Film: Sebastian Koeppel