Giant 'telescope' links London, New York
Thu May 22, 2008
by Lara Farrar


LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the first splinters of sunlight spread their warmth on the south bank of the River Thames on Thursday, it became clear that after more than a century, the vision of Victorian engineer Alexander Stanhope St. George had finally been realized.
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The Telectroscope lets Londoners and New Yorkers see each other in real time.
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In all its optical brilliance and brass and wood, there stood the Telectroscope: an 11.2-meter-(37 feet) long by 3.3-meter-(11 feet) tall dream of a device allowing people on one side of the Atlantic to look into its person-size lens and, in real time, see those on the other side via a recently completed tunnel running under the ocean. (Think 19th-century Webcam. Or maybe Victorian-age video phone.)

And all the credit goes to British artist Paul St. George. If he had not been rummaging through great-grandpa Alexander's personal effects a few years ago, the Telectroscope might still exist only on paper, hidden away deep inside some old box.

But fortunately, St. George could not bear that thought and thus decided he should be the one to finish what his great-grandfather had started. It was quite simply the right thing to do. Plus, it would make a pretty cool public art exhibit. Send us your videos, images or stories

During the twilight hours Tuesday, massive dirt-covered metal drill bits miraculously emerged -- one by the Thames near the Tower Bridge and the other on Fulton Ferry Landing by the Brooklyn Bridge in New York -- completing the final sections of great-grandfather Alexander's transatlantic tunnel.

The drills were removed Wednesday night and replaced with identical Telectroscopes at both ends, allowing Londoners and New Yorkers to wake up Thursday, look over to the far and distant shore and stare at each other for a while (the telescope-like contraption permits visual but not vocal communication).

Of course, only part of this story is true.

St. George is an artist in Britain who does have a grandfather -- minus the great prefix -- named Alexander.
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And the trans-Atlantic tunnel is really a trans-Atlantic broadband network rounded off on each end with HD cameras, according to Tiscali, an Italian Internet provider handling the technical side of the project.

As for the Telectroscope, well, it was a fanciful idea that, according to St. George, came about from a typo made by a 19th-century reporter who misspelled Electroscope, a device used to measure electrostatic charges - as Telectroscope.

"The journalist also misunderstood what it was about and wrote in the article that it was a device for the suppression of absence," St. George said. "The accidental hope captured their imagination, and lots of people at the end of the 19th century thought it was a great idea."

The Telectroscope captured St. George's imagination five years ago, when he began pondering how to do a project on the childhood fantasy of digging a hole to the opposite side of the Earth. And because the artist also happens to have an expertise in Victorian chronophotography -- a precursor to cinematography -- he had a slight idea of where to look for the proper equipment.

"We all have that idea in our head if we could make a tunnel to the other side of the Earth," St. George said."But we are not all crazy enough to actually try and do it."

St. George was crazy enough to actually try and do it, but he realized he could not do the digging alone. So about two years ago, he pitched the idea to Artichoke, the British arts group responsible for taking the Sultan's Elephant -- a 42-ton mechanical creature -- for a stroll through central London in 2006. The company was immediately taken by St. George's idea.

"The whole thing is about seeing what is real and what isn't real and how the world is," said Nicki Webb, a co-founder of Artichoke. "Is it nighttime when we are in daytime, and does it look familiar to us or not?"

When the sun illuminated the lens of the Telectroscope next to the Thames, it was, of course, still nighttime in New York. So the screen inside the scope broadcast back only an empty sidewalk silently framed by the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

But then something miraculous occurred.

A police officer and a street cleaner walked into the frame. Stopped. And waved.

The Telectroscope will be on display and open to the public 24 hours a day in London and New York until June 15. Artichoke is arranging requests to synchronize special reunions between friends and family or, the company hopes, maybe even a marriage proposal.

'Tunnel' links New York to London
00:44 GMT, Friday, 23 May 2008 01:44 UK
by Matthew Price


BBC News, New York

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People in New York see as far as London

It was possibly the most laborious and least informative interview ever conducted.

It took about five minutes, yielded a one-word answer, and gave little real flavour of the subject.

Still - it was conducted using two whiteboards, two marker pens, and it was done over a distance of 3,471 miles (5,585 km).

How? Well there are two answers to that.

If you believe artist and inventor Paul St George then his "Telectroscope" connects New York and London via a (very) long tunnel running through the earth's crust, with the images bouncing back and forth using mirrors.

The other explanation is that it is all done by optical fibres - take your pick.

One end of the "tunnel" emerges next to Tower Bridge on the banks of the Thames in London - the other is next to Brooklyn Bridge on the banks of New York's East River.

It looks like something HG Wells might have imagined.

Each end has a giant telescope-like construction which appears to punch its way out of the earth.

There are dials, and levers, and thermometer gauges on the side of the 20m long brass and wood construction.

Peer into it and you can see people on the other side of the Atlantic.

Wave at them, they wave back at you.

Write on the whiteboard, and ask a question, and they will write back.

Mesmerising

It is rather like using a giant web-cam, live streaming (though we are told the internet is not involved and there is no audio connection) between two of the world's biggest cities.

So now you know why the following interview took so long.

Once you have got the whiteboard, and written your message on it, you have to angle it correctly so they can read it over in Europe.

"What is your name?" I wrote.

The stranger at the other end, standing in front of Tower Bridge and surrounded by onlookers, picked up his marker and replied.

"Mik," came back the answer, once he had angled his board correctly.

"Where are you from?"


It is a piece of art, and it's also a sort of curiosity in a public space
Peter Coleman
New York organiser

"Bangladesh."

"What do you think of this?" I asked. (Top journalism, huh?)

"GREAT!" came the reply.

Told you it was informative.

Still it is kind of addictive and mesmerising, which strikes me as strange in a world in which we type, text, and Twitter every day, within seconds, to individuals on the other side of the planet without even thinking about it.

Peter Coleman is the producer for the New York end of the project.

"It is a piece of art, and it's also a sort of curiosity in a public space. London and New York are cities with millions of people.

"They can't believe that those are actually people in another city looking at them. That's what I find all these people are sort of amazed at. It pulls you right into it."

English sarcasm

A group of children from California now cluster round the "Telectroscope" - waving and writing messages to the London end.

"That's so cool - they can see us!" one says as they get a wave back from Tower Bridge.

"They're like way over there, and you're sort of talking to them. This is so much fun!"

A New York policeman stands in front with a message. A man at the other end writes something down.

"How's the band?"

"I'm with the NYPD, not the group The Police," the copper writes back.

English sarcasm clearly does not work down a tunnel.

A New York football fan who presumably supports the English club Chelsea steps up: "Man U. Suck!" he writes.

The view through the "Telectroscope"
Tunnel vision - the view of London from New York

The people in London look perplexed, and a little annoyed to be frank - until someone points out that perhaps to them it reads: "Man, you suck."

Then everyone gets very excited.

There are two women at the London end who are from New York City - they are writing where exactly they come from.

They hold up their sign.

"Bay Ridge Brooklyn, yer, go Bay Ridge!!" the New York crowd shout, and for a moment, two groups of strangers, in two cities thousands of miles apart, jump up and down and smile at one another.