TIMEBOX Beirut Walking Tour – BDW’15

Join the artists on a walking tour of the 10 Timebox Beirut locations.

TIMEBOX Beirut is an urban trail of early 20th century 3D images on the streets of Beirut. Each TIMEBOX holds one stereograph at the location where it was originally taken 100 years ago. Passers by experience that same street a century back in 3D.

Installation by Razan AlSalah & Lotfi AlSalah, produced in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Stiftung MENA Office (Beirut)

The box is a modern plexiglas stereoscope specially designed to mount on a street pole. It’s comprised of two superposed images that give a three-dimensional effect when viewed through the special lens.

Each TIMEBOX places the viewer’s point of view within the perspective of the original stereograph, instigating an instant visual juxtaposition between past and present – and possibly a glimpse into the future?

Creating cultural and historical interest on the streets, TIMEBOX places each archival 3D image in its original context to provoke a sense of how Beirut’s urban public space has changed in the past century. The act of walking through the trail of 10 boxes around Beirut or simply stumbling upon a TIMEBOX, aims to reawaken our experience of Beirut’s public spaces and highlight the contrast of how it has changed.

TIMEBOX is an urban toy; a pleasant surprise; an interesting way of reconnecting with the street; and with the image. Looking into the TIMEBOX, the viewer is immersed in scenes from the 1900s. One viewer with one image, an intimacy often lost in our photo-sharing world. The transparency of the media used enhances the illusion of depth but also allows a layering of past and present. An illusion and disillusion. It aims to maintain a nuanced observation rather than enchantment; it is rather a disenchantment from the collective nostalgia for the days of tramway Beirut and a realization that things have changed and are still changing.

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Meeting Location: Ferrari Showroom