Ok, so what’s this guy up to? (answer after the jump)…

Yes, he is an Aus­tri­an. His name is Miguel Gonza­lez. No, even though he looks as though he is earn­estly search­ing for his coun­try’s nation­al iden­tity, he is in fact check­ing out the view here on the oth­er side of the Earth.

It’s 7.5° and back, a col­lab­or­at­ive pro­ject by Gonza­lez and Wel­ling­ton artist Alan­nah Gunter. In Linz, Aus­tria pass­ers-by watch a mon­it­or inside a canal-tube (above) and are in turn watched by a web­cam. Placed at 7.5° to the earth, the cam­era-tube is a vir­tu­al tun­nel through the earth to Wel­ling­ton where the live image screens nightly at the Film Archive Load­ing Bay. A sim­il­ar cam­era-tube is installed in Abel Smith street; what it sees is what the Linz pass­ers-by will see.


It’s all part of the Linz Cen­ter of Con­tem­por­ary Art’s 2008 art-pro­ject Tiefen­rausch (Rap­ture of the deep) – Art and Tours through the Under­worlds of Linz. Gonza­lez came up with the idea to cre­ate a vir­tu­al hole drilled at an angle of 7.5 degrees through to the oth­er side of the plan­et, and emer­ging in Wel­ling­ton.

Linz is a tech­no­logy and knowledge–based urb­an indus­tri­al centre in Aus­tria. It takes cul­ture very ser­i­ously and places tre­mend­ous value on eco­lo­gic­ally-ori­ented qual­ity of life. This year Linz has been named co-hold­er of the title European Cap­it­al of Cul­ture, a fit­ting match for Wel­ling­ton as New Zealand’s so-called cul­tur­al cap­it­al.

It’s not a com­pletely ori­gin­al idea – see for example the Telec­tro­scope which magic­ally links Lon­don and New York – also remem­ber when Tele­com had those view-portals installed in War­ing-Taylor St and then Cour­tenay Cent­ral which were linked to Cashell Mall in Christ­ch­urch and some­where in Auck­land? – but it prom­ises to be a bit of fun, fer sure.

Drill more holes through the Earth (ok, kinda) using Ze Frank’s If The Earth Were A Sand­wich Google Maps mash-up toy.

Date: Monday 23 June – Sunday 13 July
Time: 7pm-7am
Loc’n: The load­ing bay on the Tarana­ki side of the Film Archive build­ing; some­where as yet undeter­mined in Abel Smith Street