Dark Chamber
Walking Through the Darkness | Centre for Contemporary Photography 2023
Artist Renato Colangelo has constructed a working Camera Obscura (Latin: Camera = Chamber ; Obscura = Dark) within the CCP.
You are invited to walk-in to a darkened chamber casting an image of the outside world – reversed and upside down. The ‘Dark Chamber‘ is the very starting point of photography, the moment where darkness meets light, where the interior and exterior worlds meet and co-exist. A simple yet magical process of harnessing light, and experiencing the moment, ‘Dark Chamber‘ gives audiences the opportunity to stand ‘inside’ a camera, and watch how light and dark interact to allow us to record and observe the world. The ‘Dark Chamber‘ is womb-like and poetic, and CCP welcomes you to experience this dream-like, beautiful and moving installation.
For Renato Colangelo the Camera Obscura lies in a dream like state, it can harness the beauty of the moving image combined with the reaffirmation of memory.
The Camera Obscura becomes womb like, gracious and poetic; an instant sub-conscious almost primal relationship comes with standing inside a Camera Obscura, to become voyeurs of our own environment by viewing our familiar surroundings ( Up-Side –Down).
With its simplicity and instant gratification the Camera Obscura can be considered the grand father of the digital camera.
More info: the relevant optical principles for a Camera Obscura were already recognised in the fourth century BC by Mohist mathematicians in China and by Aristotle (384 -322 BC). Aristotle observed that during an eclipse the semi-hidden sun, seen through the foliage of a plane tree was reflected as multiple, reversed images; the principle of the Camera Obscura is in fact a natural phenomenon. The crown of the tree contained a multitude of Dark Chambers. Around 1038 the Arabian scholar Ibn al Haitham (965-1040) became the first person to accurately describe the principle of the Camera Obscura. In its mathematical form, linear perspective is generally believed to have been devised about 1415 by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446). Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) made a comparative study of the functioning of the human eye and of the Camera Obscura. Giovanni Battista della Porta (1535-1615), writing in his Magica Naturalis (Natural Magic, 1558), suggested using a Camera Obscura as an aid for drawing.
This has not been Renato Colangelo’s first foray with the Camera Obscura. In 2006 Renato collaborated with Artist Darren Davison to build a large Camera Obscura (‘Standpoint’) for an exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving image ‘Eyes Lies & Illusions’ and was situated on Federation Square.
Renato used this opportunity to expose 50 sheets of large photographic paper inside the Obscura making a direct Paper Negative titled ‘Aspects of 9:35 AM’ measuring 6.2MT x 2.55MT
In 2011 Renato designed and constructed another Camera Obscura (‘Locked treasure Room’) out of a shipping container for Head On Photo Festival.
In 2013 he constructed various Camera Obscuras for Local Primary Schools in Melbourne and ran workshops for the children.