Gerlinde Miesenböck
Media Department, University of Art and Design Linz, Germany
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Published in: Inter: A European Cultural Studies : Conference in Sweden 11-13 June 2007
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 25:44, p. 415-422
Published: 2007-11-27
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
1. Tourists head to specific meaningful places; usually the capital cities of the visited countries. v
2. Tourists seem to be occupied with the reproduction of the ever same images.
3. The main attractions of a city are its most visited and photographed objects and the space around them is eventually crowded.
Through the use of a pinhole camera I intend to challenge the collective tourist gaze and photographic behaviour. My choice of this medium is reasoned with the parallel development of mass travel and the invention of photography in the early 19th century.
Since 2002 I have been travelling to European capital cities and taking photographs of their crowded main attractions. The pinhole camera and its bulky equipment make image taking plus moving around a city extremely time consuming and exhausting. Only very few pictures can be taken on a day. Through long exposure the sight becomes an isolated object on museal display.
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