Our last class discussion about performance theatre as heritage made me think of my experience at Camera Obscura, located on Edinburgh's High Street, just below the castle. Now this is building I have walked by literally hundreds of times in the past 38 years, but not until last summer did I venture in. On the sixth floor of a 19th century structure sits a device that, when manipulated, allows one to peer into the daily theatre of life in and around the streets of Edinburgh. Beyond the simple elegance of the equipment itself, I was, and frankly still am, struck by the juxtaposition of an 1850's technology projecting life in real time. Sitting in a stilled dark room watching moving images from the outside outside is almost surreal. If there was ever a place where the notions of real and imagined space converged this was it for me.

The following link takes you to a rather dark Quicktime video that will hopefully give you some idea of the experience. As hard as it is to imagine, the images seen in the concave dish are not part of a movie, they are real time happenings in the city...

http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/camera_obscura/obsc_vid.asp

http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/camera_obscura/camera_obscura.asp