EYES OF GOD

Initial impetus for the project was the experience of Aristotle, who in the 4th century BCE observed the phenomenon of image’s projection in a space darkened with leaves of a plane tree. The first camera obscura of the “EYES OF GOD” project was sewn just from the leaves of a plane tree. Tetrahedron – a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces – as the simplest geometric solid, creates an ideal form of three-dimensional “EYES OF GOD”. Eyes of Divine Providence, but also eyes of an omnipresent observer.

Cameras obscura displayed under the project have holes that allow for the continuous observation of the surroundings. They register all processes taking place in their area. Of main importance in not the actually visible image itself but more the awareness how the image is created. Therefore, accent is placed not on the registered world, but on the registration process itself. However, the cameras are in fact lined with photosensitive material and actually create the image. In direct contact with them, a viewer is motivated “to view like through a hole”. The viewer – hemmed by ten “divine eyes” – is aware that the image is recorded and the roles between the displayed object and recipient are reversed: the viewer becomes the object.

Apart from direct experience with a pinhole camera as an exhibition unit, justified are here also parallels between observation of the audience with “EYES OF GOD” used in the project and the ubiquitous modern monitoring of a unit in an urban space and in the virtual world – from data registration on social networking sites like Facebook to an electronic surveillance and data capture by secret organizations such as the NSA. This way, “EYES OF GOD” show our helplessness and vulnerability towards mass control over a unit and society.

 

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