Using a pinhole camera – the simplest image-creating technology – this installation
demonstrates how light passing through tiny holes into a dark space projects an image.
In the human “camera type eye,” light through the cornea focuses images onto retina,
as light through a lens projects an image onto film or CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) camera. The Seeing Stars device expands the single-lens image we are used to seeing. In my Galaxy photo series, each exposure projects an image of only one light source, whether that is a light bulb, candle or television set. (Candles cue religious associations; the light bulb, ‘bright ideas, etc.) The multiple-pinhole “lens” projects a galaxy of such images. We recognize a star pattern at first, but on closer examination see that each star is in fact a tiny image of what’s on the opposite side of the device. In the gallery setting, the aperture panel projects multiple views of the suspended light bulb onto the projection frame. Each view differs slightly depending on where the aperture is located within the overall star pattern.

This installation was part of the exhibition “Seeing” organized by the Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland and traveled to the United States, England, and Peru.

Seeing Stars from D Bos on Vimeo.