A sculpture by artist and musician Jem Finer has gone onto display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park this week.
The work, known as Spiegelei, is a 360-degree camera obscura housed inside a stainless steel sphere on top of an off-the-shelf shed, which reflects distorted and inverted views of the surrounding landscape.
Image © Jem Finer
Visitors are invited into the work to experience a shift in reality, in which the familiar daylight is transformed into a purple haze, the world seems to turn up side down and sounds are strangely muted.
Spiegelei was commissioned for the 2010 Tatton Park Biennial but can now be found in a spot chosen by the artist himself overlooking YSP’s historic Cascade Bridge, Lower Lake and Bretton Hall.
Jem Finer says: “Gravity is, on reflection, absurd. It’s easy to take for granted but when one stops to consider it, we’re not standing upright at all, we’re all stuck on at angles to each other. We literally are standing as if glued to the surface of the earth, pointing down towards its centre.”
A founding member of rock band The Pogues, Jem Finer originally trained as a computer scientist and musician before establishing a highly respected art practice, in which he continues to push the boundaries of visual and sonic composition. – www.ysp.co.uk