'Telectroscope' Connects New York, London in Real-Time
Sunday, May 25, 2008
by Associated Press


NEW YORK — Hello, London! Jolly good show, New York!

New Yorkers could see their English cousins across the pond Thursday without benefit of cable TV or video conferencing, courtesy of an unusual live optical hookup created by a conceptual artist with a fanciful tale of a long-lost tunnel.

An optical device called a "telectroscope" was placed at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn and another one on the Thames River in London on Thursday.

Spectators stepped up to the machine on both sides of the Atlantic and waved and wrote greetings to each other in real time on wipe-off message boards.

They told knock-knock jokes, asked about the weather and found time for a few shout-outs to Queen Elizabeth and the Manchester United soccer team.

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Manhattanite Lorena Yeves, 21, even exchanged cell phone numbers with a fellow on the London end.
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The contraption is the invention of Paul St George, a London artist known for his tiny replicas of monumental pieces of art.

Publicists will say only that it uses fiberoptic communication. St George prefers to stick to his story that the machine was started by his great-grandfather in Victorian times and transmits images via a tunnel under the ocean.

According to the project's Web site, St George's work "has always been concerned with questioning the relationship between the viewer and what is viewed. His work is also often associated with different realities, spectacle and viewer participation."

The telectroscopic spectacle and viewer participation will be in operation on both sides of the Atlantic until June 15.

The Telectroscope, London's window on New York
1:43PM BST 23/05/2008
by Urmee Khan


It looks like something from the Victorian era, and its name sounds like a device from 1950s science fiction. The Telectroscope is an extraordinary new device that allows people in London to see across the Atlantic.
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Positioned at a spot near Tower Bridge, it allows people to watch their counterparts in New York, peering through an identical scope near the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is the invention of Paul St George, a 53-year-old artist in based in London who - using broadband internet cable to transmit video images between the two venues at high speed - gives the impression that the two cities are connected via a telescope under the Atlantic sea.

For £1 a go, people will be able to wave down a massive viewing pipe into the earth and see New Yorkers waving back.
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It is the first time that spectators will be able to have a real-time, life-size view across the pond 24 hours a day.

Nicky Webb, the director of the Telectroscope production company, Artichoke, said: “You are not going to spend four hours looking down this Telectroscope, but there are all sorts of lovely possibilities, you could arrange to meet friends in New York or even propose marriage down it!

"Schools in Southwark and New York will be twinning up and using it. Its aim is to be something huge, impressive and magical.”