In A Darkened Room: reflecting on the negated interior

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of the photograph as both revealing and concealing of its own interior origins, asking whether the camera obscura’s interiority is useful in understanding changes in our relationship with the city. I explore exterior/inner/interior interactions, firstly from the subjective, bodily experience of a camera obscura in Tavira Portugal; a detached and voyeuristic view which renders the outside close yet strangely distant. Secondly, by juxtaposing the camera obscura with Rachel Whiteread’s Water Tower, I examine the paradox of an interior which, in changing the way the city is viewed, has simultaneously contributed to its own hiddenness.

The paper was originally delivered at the 'Inside in the City' Conference 2011, London Metropoiltan University