The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art presents an installation by Scottish artist-in-residence Jim Buchanan.  During his three-week residency, Buchanan has been working on a camera obscura he has entitled “Oculus” in the historic Weber Log cabin on West Street in New Harmony.  Buchanan has been aided in the construction of the installation by five USI art students Roxanne Burton, Veronica Koester, Diana Knopinski, Ashten Stenftenagel and Christopher Wilke. See the slide show.

 Born on the coast of Ireland to a family of artists, Buchanan began drawing labyrinth in the sand as a young boy.  He studied landscape architecture in England and has over twenty years experience of building labyrinths, leading to a unique technique of creating ‘labyrinths of light’ projection installations.

 “Within his installation, Oculus, he has erased the unnecessary, yet retains the essence of meditative, reflective space that the labyrinth walker seeks on their journey.  He has removed technical requirement of the lens for focus; and structurally, removed the formal labyrinth requirement of path, walls and central goal. Using instead the structure of an early pioneer cabin define the external physical world and internal ethereal space, with the door threshold for physical egress between worlds, and also that it houses the ‘oculus’ – a small aperture allowing formation of the illuminated projection within.

 At first observation there seems to be a playful anamorphic element, with the presentation of distorted view of reality of the outdoors projected upside down. However the spectator must play a part and reforming the picture, firstly by physically entering, closing the door and darkening the room, then by themselves through visual observation.

 Whilst the image of the outside world is inverted within Oculus, it is the physiological reality of our seeing the world within our eye, with all imagery projected upside down onto the retina. Our brains take over, filtering out our knowledge and experience of reality.”

 The installation can be viewed from 10 a.m. to dusk on Saturday, November 20, prior the New Harmony Art and Antiques Stroll and everyday through December 24. For more information, call 812/682-3156 or visit www.nhgallery.com.