32 - The Telectroscope

The Telectroscope
Fulton Ferry Landing
14 June 2008

The Telectroscope is an installation created by the artist Paul St. George and brought to New York and London by Artichoke. It is open from May 22 to June 15. Artichoke is a company that was founded by Helen Marriage and Nicky Webb. Their mission is to bring art to the streets and other more public venues so that they can expose the largest possible audience to their work. In 2006, Artichoke put on an exhibit called The Sultan's Elephant created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company, which featured a 42 ton mechanical elephant and a little girl marionette that paraded through the streets of London. The interactive exhibit was to celebrate the centenary of Jules Verne's death and was complete with fake newspapers to announce and update the public as to the elephant and little girl's travels.

The Telectroscope is the epitome of steam punk and much like something out of the War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The installation started with a story of Alexander Stanhope St. George, an eccentric inventor from the mid-1800s who had the idea to dig a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean from New York to London. The story continues by introducing Paul St. George, the great-grandson of the inventor who finds the original documents describing the invention in an old trunk in his grandmother's attic. Deciding that it was so crazy that it just might work, Paul St. George took over the project that had been paused so many years ago and finally finished it in May of this year.

After the story was spun, next it was time to unveil the Telectroscopes. Like the Sultan's Elephant, the Telectroscope was also completed in a series of choreographed steps, the first of which was the appearance of a gigantic drill that pierced through the pier on Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn and by the south side of the Towers Bridge in London revealing that the submarine tunnel was finally completed. Next the two Telectroscopes were installed and miraculously London and New York were connected.

The Telectroscopes use fiber optics and cameras to introduce NYers and Brits in real time. There have been marriage proposals, the introduction of new babies to relatives across the pond, friends saying hello via signs scribbled on cardboard or dry erase boards, and relatives seeing each other for the first time in years. The Telectroscope is interesting, artistic and a field day for the sci-fi imagination.