Rodney Graham is interested in old-fashioned technical devices of all kinds, especially the camera obscura. This is a darkened space into which light enters through a small hole, projecting an upside-down image of the surroundings onto the opposite surface. In his installation Siesta Room in the Country (2000) Graham utilizes this principle and stages it in miniature form. The work is a maquette of a stylized house with a closable back wall into which a lens is set. Opposite to the lens, inside the model, a projection screen is installed. A miniature sailboat is placed outside. When the back wall is closed, the interior darkens, and the inverted image of the sailboat is projected onto the screen through the lens. As an image-producing medium, the camera obscura represents a modern relationship to the world, one that aims at scientific and technical objectification. At the same time, it works as a kind of wonder machine and a forerunner of the laterna magica, already anticipating the technology of the moving image.
With his Siesta Room in the Country, Rodney Graham playfully explores the multifaceted potential of this medium.
