Construct · 3 fields · 3 citations

Where does camera obscura collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one term, two constructs Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
cameraobscura3 CONSTRUCTSOptical camera obscuraIBN AL-HAYTHAM · c.1021Camera obscura of ideologyMARX & ENGELS · 1846Camera obscuraCRARY · ART HISTORY

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1972Camera obscura of ideology1989Optical camera obscura1990Camera obscura
2026

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Optics

A dark room that paints the world upside down

A camera obscura is a darkened chamber or box with a small hole, or a lens, in one wall, through which light projects an inverted and reversed image of the scene outside onto the opposite surface. Described in Ibn al-Haytham's optics, it is the imaging principle behind the pinhole and, ultimately, the photographic camera. The referent is a real optical image-forming device.[1]

Unit
The inverted real image a pinhole or lens projects inside a dark chamber
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Characterised by the projected image's inversion, brightness, and sharpness as a function of aperture size

Political philosophy

Ideology as an image turned upside down

Marx and Engels borrow the camera obscura as a figure for ideology: just as the device projects the world inverted, ideology presents real social relations upside down, so that ideas appear to drive history when material life in fact does. Here camera obscura names a metaphor for inverted consciousness, not an optical instrument.[2]

Unit
A metaphor for ideology inverting real social relations
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Read as a critical figure for how material relations come to appear inverted in consciousness

Art history

the camera obscura as the model of a detached observer, which the book argues gave way to a new, embodied observer in the nineteenth century.

In art history, camera obscura refers to the camera obscura as the model of a detached observer, which the book argues gave way to a new, embodied observer in the nineteenth century. This meaning comes from Crary (1990) in Techniques of the observer.[3]

Unit
Recovery means
Measured by

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Nearby collisions

borrow1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone constructchamber1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone constructdrive2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructs

References

  1. Ibn al-Haytham. (1989). The optics of Ibn al-Haytham (A. I. Sabra, Trans. & Ed.). Warburg Institute, University of London. (Original work ca. 1021) ISBN 9780854810727
  2. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1972). The German ideology (C. J. Arthur, Ed.). International Publishers. (Original work written 1846) ISBN 9780717803026
  3. Crary, J. (1990). Techniques of the observer. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262031691

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