
{"id":16214,"date":"2011-02-24T11:39:10","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T16:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=16214"},"modified":"2011-02-24T11:39:11","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T16:39:11","slug":"a-whole-new-whirld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/02\/24\/a-whole-new-whirld\/","title":{"rendered":"A whole new Whirld"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16216\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16216\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/02\/24\/a-whole-new-whirld\/newwhirld1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16216\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/newwhirld1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"newwhirld1\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/newwhirld1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/newwhirld1-113x84.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/newwhirld1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/newwhirld1-106x80.jpg 106w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16216\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO BY WILL BRYANT. Artist and inventor Josh Lev watches as visitors enjoy his latest innovation, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnew Whirld,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 at an exhibit in Carrboro on Sunday. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Will Bryant<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Artists have always aimed to expand people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creative horizons and challenge a culture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standards and perspectives. <\/p>\n<p>Local artists Josh Lev and Leo Gaev have done just that and more with their latest piece of interactive art, titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new Whirld.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d At the piece\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s official display at Leo Gaev Metalworks in Carrboro on Sunday, the two showed how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve put a spin on art, flipping it completely upside down. <\/p>\n<p>Literally. <\/p>\n<p>Standing more than 12 feet tall and weighing nearly 500 pounds, new Whirld is the Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first spinning camera obscura.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an observatory to everyday life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lev said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It modifies the world just enough to get your attention and it allows you to see the world in a new way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Constructed by Gaev, new Whirld looks and feels like a spaceship but actually features an ancient technology under a new-age disguise. Built with an aluminum frame and a stainless-steel exterior, Gaev said new Whirld was a one-of-a-kind project. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We basically had to figure out how to make it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Gaev, who has been working in the Carrboro-Chapel Hill area for nearly four years. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There were no plans. We had to problem-solve every step of the way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Discovered around 400 B.C., the camera obscura technology is photography\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s distant relative and found use by ancient Greek and Chinese cultures and later by Renaissance painters.  <\/p>\n<p>New Whirld consists of a dark room that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entered by a shiny copper hatch. Set in the hatch is a lens that allows light from the outside to pass through and strike the interior wall. The result is that the outside image is reproduced inside the room, upside-down and flipped, but with color and perspective intact.<\/p>\n<p>New Whirld also has a steering wheel inside, which allows users to turn themselves 360 degrees inside the machine. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like magic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lev said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You get a panoramic movie wrapped all around you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Lev said his purpose for the piece was to challenge people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sensory perception.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of cool that light coming through this little hole can make such clear images,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sara Nelson after taking a spin at new Whirld\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exhibition. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that I think is accessible to a lot of people and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first time one of Lev\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pieces of art has been on display in the Carrboro area. Some might remember his original camera obscura that stood at 400 W. Main St. in Carrboro, directly across from the fire station. The piece, which served as Lev\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s senior thesis for Amherst College in Massachusetts, was a Carrboro landmark that stood for nearly 15 years. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A lot of people knew me from that piece,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lev said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mayor Nelson asked at the time if it was an outhouse,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n<p>Lev says he would love to find a home for new Whirld somewhere in Carrboro, but says he would prefer that it find its way into a museum, where it could continue to inspire people.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of the purposes of art, the one that I am most interested in, is to get people to see the world differently,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lev said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And if people see the world differently, then they will act differently too.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Lev hopes that if people notice how beautiful the world is through his lens, maybe the world could become a more beautiful place.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something art can do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artists have always aimed to expand people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creative horizons and challenge a culture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standards and perspectives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":16216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16214"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16228,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16214\/revisions\/16228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}