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Mirar – Ways of Seeing

Abierto Mexicano de Diseño Festival and the British Council have commissioned Myerscough & Morgan to create a landmark installation in the Zocalo during Design Week Mexico.

The theme of the festival this year is “Solutions”. Design is the cornerstone of a production system. By deciphering a complex equation of needs, design proposes solutions that through a formal and functional synthesis, can integrate something with more value than the simple sum of its parts.

The phrase “Look & See” on the top of the installation is reiterating that it is easy to look at things, we do that every second but how much do we actually see. What percentage penetrates into our minds rather than washes past in a blur.

So we come onto the reason for building a huge camera obscura installation. From the outside the installation gives away some clues of what it is but they are not obvertly obvious. We have made a raised platform so people can immediately start having different views in a square they may be very familiar with but have not see it from that position or angle before. The swing underneath the platform allow people to spend time looking at the Square whilst taking part in an activity that is not familiar to the Square.

Morag Myerscough & Luke Morgan, Mirar – Ways of Seing, Zocalo, Mexico City

Then you go through the portal into the structure and you will be in a completely black room which has projected on the wall a 3 dimensional view as a 2 dimensional upside down image. This Way of Seeing has fascinated mankind since the earliest cave paintings and scratches on the ground and is the most basic element of art and design

The process of converting 3D to 2D not only provides a saveable record of the 3D, originally with drawings and paintings and now photographically but can also be reversed by the artist and designer and communicated using 2D artwork as a way of seeing the future.

This obscura process occurs naturally with out any modern technology, as if the visitor is inside someone elses giant eye. By sharing this unexpected view people may see things they would normally dismiss or ignore for one reason or another.