Taisei Manheim- Looking Outward – 01

The interactive project that I chose was The Teletroscope, an installation during the summer of 2008 in London and New York City by Paul St. George, an artist that is based in London.  Near Tower Bridge in London and similarly positioned by the Brooklyn Bridge in New York were identical telescopes that allowed people to watch those on the other side in real time. These giant telescopes were huge and angled into the ground as to almost give the impression that there was a literal tunnel from London to New York City in which you could see those on the other side.  It was based on a Victorian engineer’s idea of connecting London and New York through a series of lenses and mirrors. This illusion of a giant tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean was made possible by broadband internet cable that transmitted video images between the two venues at a high speed. Paul St. George couldn’t complete this project by himself so he got help from the British arts organization Artichoke.  They loved the project’s idea and thought it would be easy to make, but it ended up costing $787,000.  Historically, the idea of the teletroscope helped to fuel the ideas of technologies, such as TV and the internet and even when this installation was made in 2008, video calling people around the world was not nearly as common as it is now today.