Campus Novel | Black Maria
Salon de Vortex presents the exhibition ‘Black Maria’ by Campus Novel, within the research scheme of "Urbanism for Dummies". Salon De Vortex has been selected as CHEAPART Resident 2013 hosted at CHEAPART's space.
Black Maria was the first film production studio, created by T. Edison in 1893 in New Jersey, USA. It consists of a wooden construction, coated with tar paper, which was able to rotate in order for natural light to enter throughout the day through the retractable roof. The studio offered the possibility of sound and image recording. Technological advances soon made possible the construction of similar studios, which worked towards developing better techniques of image and sound synchronization and Black Maria became obsolete after only eight years. In 1903 it was demolished after a series of productions featuring a multitude of actors, dancers and performers of the time.
Black Maria is a scenic structure that reproduces devised realities inside a restricted, self-sufficient space, where "special" events are destined to take place. Campus Novel use Black Maria as an allegory for phantasmagoria in its contemporary urban setting.
Campus Novel: Giannis Cheimonakis, Giannis Delagrammatikas, Foteini Palpana, Yiannis Sinioroglou, Ino Varvariti.