THE CONVOS BLOG

London-based artist Paul St George recently unveiled an exhibit called The Telectroscope.  In the piece, giant, steam-punk style telescopes embedded in the pedestrian walkways in London and NYC provides onlookers with a real-time view of people on the other side.  Even more impressive is the story as to how this idea came about.

While today's version is done with video streaming technology, it's a whimsical piece and worth checking out if you're in either town. Here's an excerpt from the story page:

Some years ago an artist by the name of Paul St George happened upon a packet of dusty papers in a trunk in his grandmother’s attic. On further inspection he discovered that they had been the property of his great-grandfather, an eccentric Victorian engineer, Alexander Stanhope St George.

Paul began to read through the papers and discovered a veritable treasure trove: diaries, diagrams, correspondence, scribbled calculations, and even one or two photographs. At first, Paul felt a detached interest in this first hand account of social and cultural history. But as he read on, he became more and more absorbed, until, with a sudden thrill, he realised that these papers could have a greater significance than was at first apparent.

The notebooks were full of intricate drawings and passages of writing describing a strange machine. This device looked like an enormous telescope with a strange bee-hive shaped cowl at one end containing a complex configuration of mirrors and lenses. Alexander seemed to be suggesting that this invention, which he called a Telectroscope, would act as a visual amplifier, allowing people to see through a tunnel of immense length… a tunnel, the drawings implied, stretching from one side of the world to the other.