PointOfView
Look through the binoculars on one shore and see the view from a lighthouse on another continent — while a beam of light marks where you are looking.
I — The workConcept
PointOfView connects cities across the sea through lighthouses. The public is invited to visit the lighthouse near them and look through a pair of digital binoculars that show the live view from a lighthouse elsewhere in the world. At the far end, a light projector illuminates the area being observed, so that locals can see — and return — the gaze of a stranger on another shore.
Lighthouses are both a landmark for the world to see and a tower that looks out to the rest of the world. PointOfView turns the phrase "twin cities" into a physical, mutual act of looking: a single, visible manifestation of the world wide web.
II — DocumentationPlates
III — The storyMaking & meaning
The project began with the romantic image of a lighthouse keeper staring into open space, and the realisation that the internet had made that space traversable. What if the light went both ways?
We designed the work as a starting point rather than a finished object: a protocol that could grow to connect many lighthouses into a web of intercultural, mutual observation, built together with local cultural institutions and cross-border initiatives. The first pair joined San Francisco and Haifa.
The beam of light is the heart of it. Without it, the binoculars would be surveillance. With it, the watcher is always visible to the watched, and looking becomes a form of greeting.